Social Media Marketing and its influence on International
Entrepreneurship
William (Wen Hup) Kin
Student number: 0201745J
Supervisor: Dr. Barriera
A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and
Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Management (Entrepreneurs and
New Ventures)
Johannesburg, 2014 / 2015
ii
ABSTRACT
As technology becomes more advanced, large corporate companies have used
the social media as their advertising platform. However there is little research
done on international entrepreneurs in using social media to promote their
business venture across national borders. This research paper examines
international entrepreneurs business ventures through social media and looks
at how social media users view the social media network.
A survey was used to measure the trust between social media users and the
social media brand community, while an interview was conducted on
international entrepreneurs. It was found that the brand communities serve as a
marketing entry platform firstly for new users but more importantly it serves as a
communication platform between the organisation and consumer. However,
international entrepreneurs have not been able to grasp the social media
concept, at times, delayed announcement on their new product launch. Many
international entrepreneurs lack the social media abilities, therefore are
constantly not being able to fully utilise social media as a marketing and
advertising platform.
iii
DECLARATION
I, _Wen Hup Kin ____, declare that this research report is my own work except
as indicated in the references and acknowledgements. It is submitted in partial
fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business
Administration in the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. It has not
been submitted before for any degree or examination in this or any other
university.
Signed at …Johannesburg…………………………………………………
On the ………31………………….. day of ……March…………… 2015…..
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research paper has given me new insights to my understanding of the
workings and the complexity of the social media network. I would like to take
this opportunity to thank the following people for their encouragement and
assistance during this challenging process:
To my parents, for their extraordinary support and patience, making this a very
worthwhile exercise.
To my wife, for her encouragement and patience.
To Dr. Barriera, for his guidance and support in my research studies.
To Maria Moschini, Aurora Moschini, Leigh McClellan, Grace Li, Lily Li and all
the people at the Learn to Live Centre for their unconditional support.
Lastly, I would like to thank all my friends and fellow students for their support.
“We lived on farms, then we lived in cities, and now we’re going to live on
the Internet”
-Sean Parker in “The Social Network” (2010), a David Fincher film
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................... ii
DECLARATION ............................................................................... iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .................................................................. iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................... v
LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................... viii
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................... x
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................... 1
1.1 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY ............................................................................. 1
1.2 CONTEXT OF THE STUDY .............................................................................. 1
1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT ................................................................................. 4 1.3.1 MAIN PROBLEM ...................................................................................................... 4
1.3.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESIS ................................................................ 5
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ....................................................................... 5
1.5 DEFINITION OF TERMS ................................................................................. 7
1.6 ASSUMPTIONS ............................................................................................ 7
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................ 9
2.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 9 2.1.1 ARE INTERNATIONAL ENTREPRENEURS CONTENT DRIVEN, CREATING INFORMATIONAL
AND SOCIAL CONTENT TO CREATE A STRONGER RELATIONSHIP QUALITY WITH THE
ONLINE BRAND COMMUNITY .................................................................................. 37
2.1.2 RESEARCH QUESTION 2: DO INTERNATIONAL ENTREPRENEURS CREATE A PRODUCT
THAT WILL HAVE AN IMPRESSION IN THE CONSUMER MEMORY? ............................... 39
2.1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION 3: DOES POTENTIAL CONSUMER AND ONLINE BRAND
COMMUNITY RELY ON WORD-OF-MOUTH IN ORDER TO PURCHASE A PRODUCT? ........ 39
2.2 CONCEPTUAL RESEARCH MODEL ............................................................... 40
vi
2.3 CONCLUSION OF LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................ 43
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .............................. 44
3.1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY/PARADIGM ........................................................ 44
3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN ................................................................................... 45 3.2.1 POPULATION ........................................................................................................ 51
3.3 SAMPLE AND SAMPLING METHOD ................................................................ 51
3.4 THE RESEARCH INSTRUMENT ..................................................................... 53
3.5 PROCEDURE FOR DATA COLLECTION ........................................................... 56
3.6 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION ........................................................ 57
3.7 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY .......................................................................... 59 3.7.1 INTERNAL VALIDITY ............................................................................................... 59
3.7.2 RELIABILITY ......................................................................................................... 59
3.8 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY ........................................................................ 60
3.9 CHAPTER CONCLUSION .............................................................................. 60
CHAPTER 4. PRESENTATION OF RESULTS ............................ 62
4.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 62
4.2 SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS ..................................................................... 115
CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS ........................ 117
5.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 117
5.2 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................... 122
CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS ......... 123
6.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 123
6.2 CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY .................................................................. 123
6.3 RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................... 123
6.4 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH .................................................. 124
vii
REFERENCES.............................................................................. 125
APPENDIX A ................................................................................ 147
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (REFERRED BY THE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT) .................. 153
QUESTIONNAIRES TO STUDENTS ......................................................................... 157
Appendix B .................................................................................. 163
Appendix C .................................................................................. 166
Appendix D .................................................................................. 167
Appendix E .................................................................................. 169
Appendix F .................................................................................. 171
Appendix F: Consistency matrix ............................................... 173
viii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Classification of Social Media by Social presence/ media richness
and self-presentation/self-disclosure (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010)………......18
Table 2: Summary of the different types of surveys used in this research
study (Neuman, 2006)……………………………………………………...……50
Table 3: Demographic of the social media user………………………………63
Table 4: Most popular social media network used by social media users and
the hours spent per week……………………………….………………….……64
Table 5: Respondents profile (Social media user)…………………..………..65
Table 6: Social media user job level and their usage on the social network
site………………………………………………………………………………….68
Table 7: Comparing the Assessment of normality between the survey
response and Park (2011)……………………………………………..……….69
Table 8: comparison of Construct and Composite reliability between the
survey and Park (2011)………………………………………………………..…77
Table 9: Final measurement model: Factor loadings and reliability
(Survey)…………………………………………………………………………...66
Table 10: Final measurement model: Factor loadings and reliability (Park,
2011)………………………………………………………………………………..82
Table 11: Correlation matrix of constructs (Survey)……………………...…..85
Table 12: Correlation matrix of constructs (Park, 2011)……………….….....86
ix
Table 13: Structural path, correlation and t-value…………………………….88
Table 14: Test for structural relationships to ….………………………………90
Table 15: Respondents type (International entrepreneurs)………………….91
Table 16: Most popular social media network used by international
entrepreneurs and the hours spent………………………………………..…...92
Table 17: The number of years of international entrepreneurs using the most
popular social media network …………………………………………………..93
Table 18: Case study analysis of the international entrepreneurial (Glavas
and Mathews, 2014)…………………………………….……………...………..96
Table 19: Case study analysis of the international entrepreneurial using
social media (Glavas and Mathews, 2014)……………………………………97
Table 20: Key international entrepreneur characteristics elicited during the
interview (Glavas and Mathews, 2014)……………………………………….99
Table 21: The average number of activities posted by the international
entrepreneur on social media over a period of 8 weeks……………..…….102
Table 22: Reasons for companies to use the social network sites……….103
Table 23: Barriers companies face when using the social network
sites……………………………………………………………………………...104
Table 24: Results of the hypothesis testing……………………………..…..115
x
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Organizational pursuit of international opportunities in an Internet
enabled market (Reuber & Fischer, 2011)………………………………………..11
Figure 2: Organizational pursuit of international opportunities in an Internet
enabled market (Reuber & Fischer, 2011)……………………………………..….12
Figure 3: Social media building blocks (Ghosh, 1998)………………………...…14
Figure 4: Social media Functionality (Kietzmann et al., 2011)……………..……15
Figure 5: Implications of the Functionality (Kietmann et al., 2011)………..……16
Figure 6: Social media indicators (Ghosh, 1998)……………………………...….19
Figure 7: The relationship between Web 2.0, Social media and Creative
consumer …………………………………………………………………………..…33
Figure 8: The role of social network website in the Consumer-brand relationship
(Park and Kim, 2014)……………………………………………………………..….41
Figure 9: The relationship between the brand community (C-P, C-B, C-Com, C-
Oc) and the brand trust (Habibi et al., 2014)………………………………..…….42
Figure 10: Testing the hypothesis (Park and Kim, 2014)………………...…...…43
Figure 11: Porter’s five forces analysis for Case A……………………….….…105
Figure 12: Porter’s five forces analysis for Case B……………………………..106
Figure 13: Porter’s five forces analysis for Case C…………………………......107
Figure 14: Porter’s five forces analysis for Case D……………………….........108
Figure 15: Porter’s five forces analysis for Case E……….........…………...….109
xi
Figure 16: Social Media analysis for Case A (39 Nodes, 65 Edges)…… …...110
Figure 17: Social Media analysis for Case B (32 Nodes, 49 Edges)………….111
Figure 18: Social Media analysis for Case C (31 Nodes, 31 Edges)………….112
Figure 19: Social Media analysis for Case D (29 Nodes, 32 Edges)………….113
Figure 20: Social Media analysis for Case E (30 nodes, 25 Edges)……...…..114
Figure 21: International Characteristics of innovation and proactiveness and the
influence of Internet capabilities (Glavas and Mathews)………………….……121
1
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Purpose of the study
The purpose of this research is to investigate how social media marketing
influences international entrepreneurs in their international business venture
1.2 Context of the study
With the advancement of information and technology, it has been identified as
enablers of international entrepreneurs (Reuber & Fischer, 2011) which are
feasible for the resource constrained firm as the quality and speed of
communication and transaction increase, their expenses decrease.
With the Internet boom, many large corporate companies have utilized this
platform to create their own home page, allowing visitors to browse through
their webpage and learn more about the company. Social media has already
grown rapidly across the globe and many companies have used it either as an
alternative or as a complementary advertising strategy to traditional advertising
(Arora, Arora, & Palvia, 2014).
The most important tool for international business venture is the usage of the
Internet (Glavas & Matthews, 2014; Loane, McNaughton, & Bell, 2004; Loane,
2006; Matthews & Healy, 2007; Mostafa, Wheeler & Jones, 2006; Peterson,
Welch, & Leisch, 2002), as the Internet allows the international firm to improve
the efficiency of international market transaction (Gabrielsson & Kirpalania,
2004; Glavas & Matthews, 2014; Loane et al., 2004; Matthews & Healy, 2008;
Prasad, Ramamurthy & Naidu, 2001).
Apart from the international firm using the Internet for international market
transaction, the usage of the Internet also allows the international firm to
strengthen their international business relationship while improving the
2
collection and exchange of information that is related to the foreign market or
environment (Glavas & Matthews, 2014; Peterson et al., 2002)
Brand communities can be either physical or virtual, which allows people to
admire a certain brand (McAlexander, Schouten & Koenig, 2002; Muniz &
O’Guinn, 2001).
The social network
Social networking originates from sociology (Michaelidou et al., 2011) and
within the business context refers to two or more connected business
relationships on which there is an exchange between business partners
(Anderson, Hokansson & Johanson, 1994; Pitt, Van der Merwe, Berthon,
Sakehi-Sangari & Caruana, 2006). Scott, Cooper and Baggio (2007) defined a
network as a connection between as either informed or formal and cooperative
or competitive relationship. While Wasserman and Faust (1994) added that a
network is based on the ties between individuals, groups of people,
organizational departments or corporations.
The value of the network lies in the connection to access resources (Jarillo,
1989), underlying trust, reciprocity and in the information channel itself, which is
also referred to as “Social Capital” (Coleman, 1988). A variety of network types
are used by the entrepreneurs such as the social network, reputational
networks, cooperation networks, marketing networks and knowledge innovation
and technology network (Lechner, Dowling & Welpo, 2008; Strobl & Peters,
2013).
To gain access to resources, it will depend on the strength of the network ties
(Anderson & Jack, 2002; Jack, 2005, Lai, Lin & Leung, 1998; Larsen, 1992) in
which Granovetter (1983), Kim & Aldrich (2005) added that it is determined by
the number of contact, emotional intensity, trust and reciprocity of a relationship
whereas weak ties are referred to as bridging ties (Jenssen & Greve, 2002).
Stronger ties allow the entrepreneur to face uncertainty and it gives them the
3
flexibility to change (Jack, 2005; Jack & Anderson, 2002; Krackhardt, 1992).
These strong ties provide financial support and resources whereas weak ties
give access to information (Jenssen & Koenig, 2002).
Online Social Network (OSN) and Social media
Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+ are commonly used, and are referred to as
Multiple Online Social Networks (OSN), which they allow people to be
connected across the world (Heidemann et al, 2012). Therefore social media is
a web browser or a mobile based application which will allow users to be able to
customize, create, edit, access and link to content and/ or to other individuals.
These will include blogs, wiki, RSS feeds, electronic social networks, content
aggregator (TripAdvisor) and location based applications (e.g. foursquare)
(Cabiddu, De Carlo, & Piccoli, 2014). Mangold and Faulds (2009) found that
social media also known as “user-generated communication” has changed how
companies communicated with its customers and that it’s the customers who
are now controlling the information thus proliferation of social media has
changed how the organization communicates with the consumer thus pursuing
a variety of strategies to engage with the consumer (Dholakia & Durham, 2010)
The use of OSN was intended to be used for private use (Bughin & Manyika,
2007). A study done by Cone (2008) found that 93% of social media users
believed that companies should use social media and that 85% believed that
companies should use social media to communicate with its customers. Many
companies have included direct links from their WebPages to their social media
sites, the use of these tools is to promote their brands as well as support the
creation of brand communities (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Michaelidou,
Siamagka & Christodoulides, 2011).
Mangold and Faulds (2009) found that social media provides online information
that is created and used for educational purposes about issues including
4
products and brands while Van Den Bulte and Wuyts (2007) added that it has
the potential to achieve the brand objective.
A social network site which consists of a variety of Internet media is commonly
known as social media in which it allows users to build a user profile within the
bounded system, allows users to share information with whom they share a
connection (Taylor, Lewin & Strutton, 2011) and it allows users to browse other
users connection lists (Boyd & Ellison, 2008).
1.3 Problem statement
1.3.1 Main problem
Past researchers (Cavusgil, 1984; Frishammar & Andersson, 2010; Hutchinson,
Quinn, & Alexander, 2006, Moreno & Casillas, 2008; Lu & Beamish, 2001;
Qureshil, Kamal, & Wolcott, 2009) have recognised the importance of
international entrepreneurs especially when they internationalise their firm.
There has been a limited number of researches done on international
entrepreneurs (Aspelund & Moen, 2004; Loane et al., 2004,; Loane 2006;
Mostafa et al., 2006; Reuber & Fisher, 2011), where they create an online
presence on the Internet, despite its importance in shaping online interaction
(Mislove, Marcon, Gummadi, Drushchel, & Bhattacharjee, 2007) brand support
(Christodoulides, 2009) and their Internet capabilities (Glavas, & Mathews;
2014). However, there is little research done on the effect of social media
marketing and its influence it has on international entrepreneurs.
There is a lack of study with regards to social media and the impact it has on
international entrepreneurial business ventures. According to Reuber & Fischer
(2011), there are three fields that need to be examined such as online
reputation, online branding community and online technical capabilities in order
for the international entrepreneur to be successful in launching their business
on the World Wide Web.
5
Jung, Kim and Kim (2014) found that social and informational benefits had a
positive impact on attitude which influenced the consumers to revisit the brand
websites as well brand trust. However the study was solely focused on the Nike
brand, more empirical research will need to be done with different types of
online brands. Another research project (Glavas and Mathews, 2014) focused
on the tourism industry and it showed that the lack of understanding of social
media functionalities had an effect on the firm’s business
Thus, the main problem is to understand factors that will affect international
entrepreneur’s international business venture through the social media.
1.3.2 Research questions and Hypothesis
The sub- problems are
Sub- problem 1: Understanding the factors such as emotional and branding
messages that international entrepreneurs use when posting onto social media.
Sub- problem 2: Determine if the information posted on social media by the
international entrepreneur is beneficial for the consumer.
Sub- problem 3: Evaluate how consumers view social media information and
the affect it has on the firm’s brand.
1.4 Significance of the study
The purpose of this study is to understand how international entrepreneurs use
social media to brand their firm and to investigate, from the consumer
prospective, how much information they trust that is posted onto the social
media network.
Past researchers (Mathews, & Healy, 2007; Mostafa et al., 2006; Reuber, &
Fischer, 2011) have found that the link between the international entrepreneurs
6
characteristics, Internet capabilities as well as the process and outcomes of the
organisation is still uncertain, therefore the aim of the study is to fill the
knowledge gap between social media marketing and the influence it has on
international entrepreneurs business ventures.
Glavas & Matthews (2014) added that past researchers (Davis, Harveston &
Nicovich, 2000; Loane & Bell, 2006; Loane et al., 2004; Loane, 2006; Mostafa
et al., 2006) found that the Internet acts as a catalyst in driving Internet
generated internationalization. They also added that past research have solely
showed the positive impact on the firm using the Internet but have neglected the
role of international entrepreneurs in exploiting Internet capabilities for their
international business venture (Glavas & Matthews, 2014).
There have been a significant small number of studies done by researchers
(Aspeland & Moen, 2004; Loane et al., 2004; Laone, 2006; Mostafa et al., 2006;
Reuber & Fischer, 2011) but to date, less attention has been paid to
understanding the relationship between international entrepreneur’s
characteristics and Internet capabilities and outcomes for international business
ventures (Glavas & Matthews, 2014).
This research paper also attempts to address the knowledge gap by identifying
the international entrepreneur’s characteristics and Internet capabilities and
relating it to the international business process of the organisation.
This research study has both theoretical and practical implications for current
and potential international entrepreneurs by adding further knowledge of the
usage of social media in this field. It will, particularly, provide key information
about the about the usage of social media as a marketing tool to create brand
awareness, brand community, product information to increase revenue in
international business ventures.
7
1.5 Definition of terms
Internet traffic: The transfer of data over the Internet
Nodes: A node in this research study refers to the individual actors within the
social media network
Ties: This represents relationships between the individuals, which includes
friendship, kinship, organisational positions as well as sexual relationship.
Online user: A person who uses the Internet
Small to medium sized enterprise (SME): In this research study, a small to
medium enterprise consist of between 50-250 employees, with an annual
turnover of approximately R300 million.
Web page: A web document that is displayed on the Internet and contains only
a small percentage of all the words ever used on in the web.
Web site: A web page that is published on a certain domain and is accessible to
the public
1.6 Assumptions
The following assumptions are based on the research study
All social media respondents are aware of international entrepreneur’s
business that is on the Online Social Network.
All social media users and international entrepreneurs are familiar with
various types of Online Social Network.
This study aims to look at a sample population of current international
entrepreneur’s representation as well as sample population of social media
users representation.
8
The respondents of social media users are important for this research. Their
responses impact the research, negatively or positively.
Fears that the data collected from respondents will be used for competitive
purposes might have an influence on the respondents’ attitude during the
interview as well as to the online questionnaire.
The research instrument used is an online questionnaire and the data
collected with this technique is a true reflection of the reality.
The social media user and current international entrepreneurs have an
interest in the result of the survey and it is assumed that that the existing
relationship would have a good response rate.
It is assumed that the current international entrepreneurs have sufficient
knowledge of the existing online social network site.
Time and costs would be a constraint in order to finalize the research study
within the required time frame.
Social media users have sufficient knowledge of English in order to
complete the online questionnaires.
Current international entrepreneurs have sufficient knowledge of English to
understand English dialects during the interview.
9
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
The firm can optimize its international business process when it is
internationally market-oriented and entrepreneurial (Bhuian, Menguc, Bell,
2005). Li and Ye (1999) also highlighted that using the Internet as a strategic
resource allows international entrepreneurs to operate their internationalised
firm more efficiency. With the advancement and innovation of technology, it has
changed the nature of social networks; traditional social networks consist of
personal human interaction (Kimball & Rheingold, 2000), while contemporary
social networks are mediated by computers (Michaelidou et al., 2011) and the
Internet. The advantage of online social networks is that the various time zones
and geographical locations is less significant as members are able to provide
support, information and solutions from different locations across the world
within a short period of time (Lea, Wu, Maguluru & Nichols, 2006).
Reuber and Fischer (2011) developed a conceptual model of organizational
resources that relate to the firm’s successful pursuit of international
opportunities such as using Internet capabilities to successfully pursue
international market opportunities. The model was derived from an extensive
literature review which included a variety of fields such as Entrepreneurship,
International Business, Management, Management Information System and
Marketing.
Proposition 1 (P1): The online visibility of a firm is positively related to the firms’
pursuit of international opportunities when products or services are placed on
the Internet.
Proposition 2 (P2): The relationship between the valence, volume and
consistency of its online reputational signals and the firm’s pursuit of
10
international opportunities, when products or services are placed on the
Internet.
Proposition 3 (P3): The back end integration of the firms’ online technology is
positively related to the firms’ pursuit of international opportunities when
products or services are placed on the Internet.
Proposition 4 (P4): A firms’ website customization capabilities are positively
related to the firms’ pursuit of international opportunities when products or
services are placed on the Internet.
Proposition 5 (P5): The technological opportunism of a firm is positively related
to the firms’ pursuit of international opportunities when products or services are
placed on the Internet.
Proposition 6 (P6): The level of engagement of a firm’s online brand community
is positively related to the firm’s pursuit of international opportunities when
products or services are placed on the Internet.
11
Figure 1: Organizations pursuit of international opportunities in an Internet
enabled market (Reuber & Fischer., 2011)
An international entrepreneur needs three resources to successfully pursue
international opportunities, namely: Online reputation, Online technological
capabilities and Online brand community. A market research report (Breslauer
& Smith, 2009; E-marketer, 2010) has found that corporate companies utilize
social network sites to build direct relationships with customers, increase the
Pursuit of international
opportunities in internet enabled
markets
Online visibility
Percieved truthworthiness
Back end integration
Website customization capabilities
Technological opportunism
Engagement of brand community members
P3
P4
P5
P1
P2
P6
12
number of visitors to their website, identification of new business opportunities,
and collecting feedback from customers as well as building their brands.
Figure 2: Organizations pursuit of international opportunities in an Internet
enabled market (Reuber. & Fischer, 2011)
Previous researchers (Roxane et al., 2012; Gupta, Armstrong & Clayton, 2011)
found that Facebook has 800 million users worldwide. Users spend at least over
1 trillion minutes per month on the web page whereas more than 2.5 million
websites have integrated with Facebook (as of July 2011). Twitter has seen a
record of more than 225 million users in which 34% are used by marketers and
Top Managment
Online Reputation
Valence of online signal
Percieved Truthworthiness
Volume of online signal
Cosistantency of online signals
Online Visibility
Online Technical capabilities
Back‐end integration
Website customization capabilities
Technological opportunism
Online Brand Community
Engagement of Brand community
member
13
20% have led to companies closing deals. LinkedIn has 135 million users (as of
November 2011), up from approximately 85 million in late 2010, some of whom
there are Executives from every company that has been featured in the Fortune
500. Youtube has over 490 million unique visitors per month (as of February
2011), and it generates 92 billion page views; users spend a total of 2.9 billion
hours per month.
The McKinesey report mentioned that social technologies (Bughin, Byers, &
Chui, 2011) showed that 72% of companies have implemented at least one
social media technology such as social network sites, video sharing, blogs and
microblogging.
Social media provides a platform for consumers to interact with the company,
i.e. creating two-way communication as well as developing a relationship with
its customers (Enders, Hungenberg, Denker & Mauch, 2008; Kaplan &
Haenlein, 2010). Thus, it may create trust through connection with customers. It
also plays a vital role in the transmission of information in which social media
networks are not based on finance but rather an accumulation of “reputational
capital” (Ghosh, 1998). In order to understand social media, several indicators
are used.
Proposition 1 (P1): The use of technology in social media is an indicator of
measuring social media success.
Proposition 2 (P2): Building trust and relationships with consumers is an
indicator of social media success.
Proposition 3 (P3): Return on Investment in the social media is an indicator of
social media success.
Proposition 4 (P4): Protecting consumers’ privacy is an ethics indicator of
measuring social media success.
14
Figure 3: Social media building blocks (Ghosh, 1998)
Social media has utilized mobile and web technologies to create a platform that
will allow individuals and communities/social media groups to share and create,
discuss, and modify user generated content which would essentially be a more
interactive site (Chiu, Hsu, & Wang, 2006; Kietmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, &
Silvestre, 2011; Kirtiş& Karahan, 2011).
There is a lack of understanding on how the social media platform functions
where many corporate or large organization managers (Kaplan and Haenlein,
2010) have been reluctant or at times, unable to create a social media
communication strategy thus they regularly miss or ignore opportunities and
threats communicated by their consumers, (Berthon, Pitt, McCarthy, & Kates,
2007; Kietzmann et al, 2011) decreasing their organization’s growth opportunity.
In order to fill in the knowledge gap, Kietmann et al. (2011) formulated a
honeycomb framework,that consisted of seven functional building blocks for the
Social Media indicators
Technology
Trust
Return on Investment
Ethics
P1
P2
P3
P4
15
social media platform. The functional building blocks include Groups,
Reputation, Relationships, Presence, Sharing, Conversation and Identity
(Figure 4 and 5)
Figure 4: Social Media Functionality (Kietzmann et al., 2011)
Presence
The extent to
which users know
if others are
Conversations
The extent to which users
communicate with each other
Identity
The extent to which users
reveal themselves
Sharing
The extent to which users exchange,
distribute and receive content
Relationships
The extent to
which users relate
to each other
Groups
The extent to which users are ordered or form
communities
Reputation
The extent to which users know the social
standing of others and content
16
Figure 5: Implications of the functionality (Kietzmann et al., 2011)
Sharing
Content management
system and social
graphs
Presence
Creating and
managing the
reality, intimacy
Identity
Data privacy controls,
and tools for user self-
promotion
Reputation
Monitoring the
strength, passion,
sentiment, and reach
of users and brands Groups
Membership rules
and protocols
Conversation
Conversation
velocity, and the
risks of starting and
joining
Relationships
Managing the structural
and flow properties in a
network of
relationships
17
Researchers (Lu and Yang, 2011; Weiss et al., 2008) also found that when
there are some informational uncertainities, social media users tend to use the
social media to reduce the uncertainity by satisfing their informational needs.
There is a significant amount of literature that has identified the diferent types of
social media (Zűlch, Weber & Muntermann, 2014) that differ in nature as well as
functionalities, such types include blogs, microblogs, social network sites,
message boards, colloborative projects, virtual social worlds and virtual game
worlds. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) (Table 1) proposed the need for a
classification of different social media types based on media richness and social
presence wheras Kietzmann et al. (2011) identified the different functionality
(eg. Identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and
groups) of social media platforms while Zűlch et al. (2014) focused on the social
media types that are responsible for generating user content such as
microblogs, social network sites and message boards (Boyd and Ellison, 2007;
Schmidt, 2007; Stiaglitz and Dang-Xuan, 2013; Im and Chee, 2006).
18
Table 1: Classification of Social Media by Social presence/media richness and
self-presentation/self-disclosure (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010)
Social Presence/ Media richness
Low Medium High
Self-Presentation/
Self disclosure
High Blogs Social networking
sites
Virtual social
worlds
Low Colaborative Content
communities
Virtual game
worlds
Social Media self-efficacy
The OSN is a platform that allows people to create and distribute content across
a variety of social media networks. With an influx of information being uploaded
by the user (Nielson, 2012), a number of social media networks have put into
place an online information filter to prevent certain types of information being
posted on the network yet there is a substantial variance in the quality of the
information being posted on the social media network (Agichtein, Castillo,
Donato, Gionis & Mishne, 2008).
19
Figure 6: Social media indicators (Ghosh, 1998).
Cox, Burgess, Sellitto, & Buultjens (2009); Schmallegger & Carson (2008) and
Xiang & Gretzel (2010) found that social media plays a crucial role in innovation
in the tourism industry, not only did it allow the transfer of information between
the consumer and company and affect potential tourists’ experiences
(Tussyadiah & Fesenmaier, 2009) but it also gave the industry the ability to spur
further innovation (Hjalager, 2010).
Social media advertising and marketing
The uniqueness and popularity of the online social network among the social
media users has resulted in a change in the marketing strategy (Hanna, Rohn,
& Crittenden, 2011); a strategy aimed at gaining a deeper insight on consumer
Social Media indicators
Technology
Trust
Return on Investment
Ethics
20
behaviour from information acquisition to post purchase behaviour (Mangold
and Faulds, 2009; Powers, Advincula, Austin, & Graiko, 2012)
Within marketing literature, an online brand is viewed as a product or service
that meets certain customer needs through interaction in a computer-mediated
environment such as the Internet (Hoffman and Novak, 1996, 2009). Marketing
scholars fore fronted the emotive aspects of brand experience (Morgan-Thomas
and Veloutsou, 2013) where the importance of brand personality or brand equity
is stressed (Okazaki, 2006; Da Silva and Syed Alwi, 2008a, 2008b; Kwon and
Lennon, 2009; Christodoulides, de Chernatomy, Furrer, Shiu, & Abimbola,
2006; Christodoulides and de Chernatomy, 2004).
Males and females tend to react to advertising in a very different manner
(Darley and Smith, 1995); there is a difference in attitude towards social
network marketing. Previous researchers (Schlosser et al., 1999, Sheehan,
1999; Weiser, 2000; Wolin and Korgaonkar, 2003) suggested that the difference
in attitudes towards Internet use is due to behaviour; males tend to use the
Internet for entertainment, leisure, and functional purposes whereas females
tend to use the Internet for communication and interaction purposes (Weiser,
2000). Social network advertisements that consist of informative, quality of life
and entertainment values tend to attract males more easily as opposed to their
counterparts. Other results have also shown that peer influences as well as self
brand congruity have a bigger influence over males.
Females tend to have a different attitude (Sheehan, 1999) towards online
privacy, as they tend to be concerned about perceived invasion of privacy.
However, males tend to alter their marketing-related attitudes and behaviour
when setting their online privacy after perceiving a privacy threat. Therefore,
privacy concerns within social network sites will be stronger from males than
females, that is, females generally appear to have stronger attitudes related to
invasiveness such as offensiveness, deceptiveness and annoying
advertisements (Wolin and Korgaonkar, 2003).
21
Branding communities
The advancement of the Internet and technologies has changed the landscape
of global branding (Morgan-Thomas, & Veloutsou, 2013). Online branding has
grown in the last 15 years from obscurity to a powerhouse name with a market
value attached to it. Examples include the search engine “Google”, which
according to the Financial Times (2009) had an estimated $100,039 million.
According to Song, Zhang, Xu and Huang (2010), the key for driving Internet
traffic into the company webpage is to have repeated interaction between the
online user and the online brand. Therefore, it is critical for the online brand to
maintain active engagement with the online user through repeated interaction
(Bart, Shanker, Sultan, & Urban, 2005; Bridges and Forsheim, 2008;
Christodoulides, 2009; Helm, 2007; Kollmann and Suckow, 2008; Morgan-
Thomas and Veloutsou, 2013)
With the rise of the use of social media among consumers, it has been a lot
easier for them to join the online brand community. People enjoy joining
communities as they would like to obtain more information and (Porter et al,
2011), build productive relationships by interaction with other people in the
community (Dholakia and Bagozzi, 2004; Hars and Ou, 2002; McKenna and
Bargh, 1999; Nambisan and Baron, 2009) and have a feeling of reward through
communal acts such as helping others with similar interest (Dholakia and
Bagozzi, 2004; porter et al., 2011).
The concept of community has been researched in many different fields such as
sociological, cultural as well as communication. However it has been commonly
been applied to any group of people where the type of bond between them
defines the community (Davis et al., 2014). A consumption community is formed
where consumers have shared feelings as well as activities in the consumption
of the common object (Friedman et al., 1992). Thus Muniz and O’Guinn (2001)
defined a human consumption context as members of the community that are
22
non-geographically bonded but they share a common morality, consciousness,
rituals and traditions (Cova, 1997). Therefore, consumers in brand communities
are “psychically” connected (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2002; Murray, 1991).
The nature of online social network sites is to allow like-minded consumers or
people to gather into groups and sub-groups with a specific interest (Habibi et
al., 2014; Mangold and Faulds, 2009). There are many groups within social
media that allow brands, initiated by the brand manager or by consumer, to use
its online platform.
Social media has aggressively changed their user interface platform to allow a
stronger interaction between brands and their community (Nambisan & Watt,
2011). These interactions remove both the physical and temporal barriers
(Davis et al., 2014) in order to increase engagement between the consumers.
Social media is changing the way marketers communicate to their consumers
from a marketer led brand to consumer ownership and co-creation of meaning
(Ostrom et al., 2010). Thus, social media is changing from a traditional
marketing campaign to an online non-tangible marketing campaign by changing
consumer behaviour, relationship as well as brand practice (Hennig-Thurau et
al., 2010; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010) which will have an impact on business
(Sands et al., 2011; Corstjens and Umblijs, 2012).
Therefore, the brand community serves as an important tool for both the
consumer and brand manager (Habibi et al., 2014) seeing as it provides a
platform for the brand and marketers to share relevant information and interact
with highly devoted consumers (Anderson, 2005), thereby, integrating
consumers into the brand community. (Anderson, 2005; Habibi et al., 2014 and
McAlexander et al.,2002). As a result, the brand is able to ascertain consumers’
needs, which is then used towards innovation and new product development
purposes (Habibi et al., 2014; Von Hippel, 2005), ultimately, creating value with
and for the consumer (Schau et al., 2009).
23
Consumers can now fully engage with their preference brand (Christodoulides
et al., 2012; Helm and Jones, 2010) online via the social network sites resulting
in an increase in brand access mandate (Davis, Piven and Breazeale, 2014) to
a more engaging online platform in the company’s branding strategy (Nayloret
al., 2012, Verhoef et al., 2010; Van Doorn et al., 2010).
Grönroos (2000), Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2000), and Vargo and Lusch
(2004) added that brand value is embedded in co-creation with the consumer,
as brands are moving from an old industry model to a value created product
and service. This co-creation not only allows the consumer to take part but it
strengthens the consumer-brand relationship and builds the consumer
experience (Pine and Gilmore, 1999), Csaba and Bengtsson (2006),
McAlexander et al., (2002). Muniz and O’Guinn (2001) added that brand identity
is co-created with consumers and other stakeholders that are found in brand
communities; these consumers become the culture carriers of brands as
opposed to followers of the company’s vision.
Holt (1995) defined consumption: consuming consists of a structure and a
purpose and consumption comprises of two mediums, brand and social media
technology. Therefore, the structure of consumption consists of the brand and
community whereas the purpose of the consumption for the individual as well as
the interpersonal interaction with the community.
Brand consumption is commonly carried out in the social community in which
consumption value is an uninterrupted social process of stakeholder’s
interactions (Vock et al., 2013; Merz et al., 2009). Consumption then leads to
the social co-production of shared meanings. (Twominen, 2007; De
Chernatomy and Segal-Horn, 2001) found that brand community in social media
had a positive impact on the brand such as value creation and service quality
(Ellah and Bokhari, 2013).
24
Recent research (Davis and Sajtos, 2008) found that social media which was
traditionally accessed by a fixed physical space of a computer screen is now
compatible with mobile phones, most notably smartphones, which has now
further increased the consumption, connection as well as the interactivity by the
brand and conversation related context from other channel of communication
such as a radio and television set.
According to a market research (eMarketer, 2014), it was found that in 2013,
one in four consumers (1.73 billion people) globally use social network sites and
there is a prediction of 2.55 billion social media users by 2017.
With further advancement in the social media interface and software, it will
enhance capability to allow users to easily share their brand experience as well
as opinions which will potentially shape the branding offerings as well as impact
others users interpretation of the brand (Davis et al., 2014)
International entrepreneur
Oviat and McDougall (2005) defined international entrepreneur as “the
discovery, enactment, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities-across
borders-to create future good and services” (Kiss, Danis, Cavusgil, 2012) .
For the past two decades, international entrepreneurs have grown rapidly due
to the increase in globalisation (Hisrich et al, 1996; Keupp and Gassmann,
2009; Knight and Cavusgil, 2006, 2004, 2005; McDougall et al., 1994; Oviat and
McDougall, 1994, 2005; Zahra and George, 2002) and the integration into the
world economy (Aulakh and Kotabe, 2008).
The growth of the world economy can be related to the reduction of trade
barriers as well as the improved international market network (Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development, 2009).
Past researchers (Bruton et al., 2008; Yamakawa, et al, 2008; Zahra and
George, 2002) have criticized that most of entrepreneurship and international
25
entrepreneurship research has been largely focused on advanced economies.
However Bruton et al. (2008) noted that there is a need to do further research
in understanding of international entrepreneurship and the role it plays in
facilitating economic growth in emerging economies.
Researchers (Komulainen, Mainela, and Tahtinen, 2006; Sharma and
Blomstermo, 2003) have found that one of the most important
internationalization processes for the international entrepreneurs business
venture is the weak ties within their network relationship, in which social
networks provide a platform to maintain weak ties at low cost therefore there will
be an increase in formation of weak ties (Donath and Boyd, 2004). This network
relationship can be built online in which it provides opportunities for individuals
to create a large number of relationships (Ellison, Steinfeld, and Lampe, 2011).
International entrepreneurs are forced to go global at an early stage of their
business venture as they will struggle to achieve the economies of scale within
their small domestic market (Kutschker, Baurle, and Schmid, 1997), therefore
online social networks have become important for international entrepreneurs
as there is an increase in web technology development and it will create
potential for business relationships to progress (Sigfusson and Chetty, 2013) as
well as being able to conduct international trade (Pitt, van der Merwe, and
Berthon, 2006) .
When international entrepreneurs enter into a foreign market, they should not
focus on the availability of resources that will allow the firm to succeed instead
the focus should be on the resources that the firm possesses (Wernerfelt, 1984)
in which to start or expand business activities. Several critical resources such
as capital, skills and labor are often lacked (Sigfusson and Chetty, 2013)
however it was found that they had top management skills such as knowledge
and networks when international entrepreneurs started to internationalize
(Freeman and Cavusgil, 2007; Oviatt & McDougall, 2005).
26
International business processes can be optimised when a firm is internationally
market orientated and entrepreneurial (Bhuian et al., 2005) as the decision
making power within the SMEs and the impetus for firm internationalisation
often lies with the international entrepreneurs as opposed to the management
team that are commonly found as the decision maker in a larger multi-national
firms (Bhuian, Menguc, & Bell, 2005).
Recent research has identified international entrepreneurs as an important
potential catalyst in driving Internet generated internationalisation (Davis,
Harveston, & Nicovich, 2000; Loane, & Bell, 2006; Loane et al., 2004; Loane,
2006; Mostafa et al., 2006). Past research highlighted the positive advantages
and impact on firms, however, it has neglected the significant influence of the
decision maker, or in this case, the international entrepreneur’s role in exploiting
Internet capabilities for the international business processes of the firm (Glavas,
& Mathews, 2014).
The role of international entrepreneurs in the internationalisation of firms has
been widely acknowledged in international business literature (Cavusgil, 1984,;
Frishammar & Andersson, 2010, Hutchinson, Quinn, & Alexander, 2006;
Moreno & Casillas, 2008; Lu & Beamish, 2001; Quershiol, Kamal, & Wolcott,
2009). Frishammar and Andersson (2010) argued that there was a positive
relationship between international entrepreneurs and international business
outcomes, namely, number of international business markets and percentage of
total sales as international revenue and profit. Additionally, Lu and Beamish
(2001) noted that international business outcomes also include foreign
investments and number of customers of the firm.
Entrepreneurship studies have criticised the lack of studies on SME
internationalisations especially on how international entrepreneurs perform in an
Internet environment (Mostafa et al., 2006; Reuber & Fischer, 2011). This is due
to the fact that there has been an increase in the number of businesses and
27
firms whom are already using the Internet to pursue international business
processes and international business ventures (Reuber, & Fischer, 2011).
Scholars (Koth, Rindova, & Rothaermel, 2001; Loane, 2006) have argued that
the instant internalisation from a technological perspective is limited; this is due
to the fact that there is a restraint in capabilities and functionalities within the
organisation when using the Internet. For example, organisations that created a
website are not automatically considered an international business. Instead, the
organisation needs to survive and grow in a highly competitive Internet business
environment thus firms need to outsource their current resource base (Liao,
Kickul, & Ma, 2009). Liao et al. (2009) added that past research has also
suggested that the Internet environment renders unsustainable competitive
advantages and international outcomes obsolete, however, Glavas and
Mathews (2014) argued that competitive advantages and successful
internationalisation occurs when a firm is able to utilize its capability to
rejuvenate and redeploy the firm’s Internet capabilities. Despite all this
research, there is still a lack of understanding between the international
entrepreneurship characteristics, Internet capabilities as well as international
business processes of the firm (Mathews & Healy, 2007; Mostafa et al., 2006;
Reuber & Fischer, 2011)
There has been a limited number of empirical research papers that have
provided some insight into how international entrepreneurs are performing in an
Internet environment, however the research is still yet to evolve, warranting
greater exploration to reveal the key characteristics of international
entrepreneurs’ influence on business decisions among SMEs, as the research
in the Internet’s role in international entrepreneurs is still in its infant stages
(Arenius, Sasi, & Gabrielsson, 2006; Etemad, Wilkinson, & Dana, 2010; Loane,
2006; Mostafa et al., 2006; Reuber & Fishcer, 2011; Sinkivics & Bell, 2006).
Specifically, there is a need to further understand and identify the international
entrepreneurs’ characteristic influences on Internet capabilities as well as the
28
international business process of the organisation within the international
entrepreneurs’ studies (Mostafa et al., 2006; Reuber & Fischer, 2011).
International entrepreneurship orientation
Entrepreneurial orientation has played an important role in entrepreneurship
research (Slevin & Terjesen, 2011); this has been referred to as the strategy
making processes of firms engaged in entrepreneurial activity (Lumpkin & Dess,
2001). Scholars, (Jantunen, Puumalainen, Saarenketo, & Kylaheiko, 2005;
Knight, 2001; Mostafa et al., 2006; Ripollés-Meliá. Menguzzato-Boulard, &
Sánchez-Peinado, 2007; Slevin & Terjesen, 2011), have suggested that
entrepreneurial orientation can be extended to the field of international
entrepreneurship as a way of examining and explaining the cross-border
internationalisation of a firm.
For SMEs to survive and being able to be successful in the international market,
firms need to approach and engage in international behaviour (Slevin &
Terjesen, 2011). A firm‘s international entrepreneurial orientation can also allow
business to identify and exploit internationalisation opportunities. Covin and
Slevin (1991) added that international entrepreneurial orientation is a multi-
dimensional concept, where it is a reflection of the firms overall proactiveness
and aggressiveness in its international business venture (Knight, 2001).
International entrepreneurship orientation involves taking advantage of the
international market offerings and risks in international environments and being
more proactive than its competitors in relation to new international business
opportunities (Covin & Slevin, 1991; Jantunen et al., 2005; Wang, 2008).
Miller (1983) noted three dimensions that are incorporated into the international
entrepreneurial orientation; these three dimensions are a reflection of the firm’s
propensity to engage in international innovative, proactive and risk-taking
behaviours in order for the firm to achieve its competitiveness and
internationally orientated goals (Knight, 2001). The three dimensions include the
29
firm’s tendency to enter into experimentation such as supporting new
international ideas and departing from established ideas (Lumpkin & Dess,
1996; Miller, 1983; Wiklund & Shepard, 2005). Secondly, international
proactiveness is related to the aggressive positioning of their product to their
competitor with an emphasis on the execution and on-going tasks, while the
company is in pursuit of their firms international market objectives (Knight,
2001). Lastly, international risk-taking propensity denotes the willingness of the
international entrepreneur in making an investment and commitment to projects
that have uncertain outcomes or unusually high profits and/or loss (Lee,
Kyungmook, & Pennings, 2001; Lumpkin & Dess, 1996; Wiklund & Sheperd,
2005)
International entrepreneurs and Internet capabilities
Researchers have suggested that in order for an entrepreneurial SME to be
highly successful in the international market, there will need to be a change
within the business so that they can adapt to new developments such as
Internet capabilities (Buttriss & Wilkinson, 2003; Loane, 2006; Mostafa et al.,
2006).
Glavis and Mathews defined Internet capabilities as the leveraging of Internet
technology for the international business process of the firm, therefore,
improving the transferring of knowledge, creating an efficiency of international
market transactions and the development and maintenance of international
network relationships.
Exploitation of the Internet capabilities is critical not only for its international
business venture for international entrepreneurs, but as the growth and low cost
of the Internet, international entrepreneurs SMEs are able to connect with
people and locations all over the world thus strengthening international
business relationships (Loane, 2006; Ruzzier, Hisrich, & Antoncic, 2006).
Therefore, the Internet has the ability and capacity to increase the efficiency of
30
market transaction as well as enhance the learning process about international
operations making it faster and creating more extensive access to relevant
information (Mathews & Healy, 2008; Morgan-Thomas & Bridgewater, 2004;
Petersen et al., 2002).
Scholars (Aspelund, & Moen, 2004; Hamill & Gregory, 1997; Loane & Bell,
2006; Loane, 2006; Mathews & Healy, 2007, 2008; Prasad, et al., 2001;
Samiess, 1998) have argued that there is a new paradigm in international
studies due to the Internet’s influence and ability to facilitate international
market expansion as Internet capabilities are becoming more and more
essential and important for international firms, especially firms that are
geographically isolated.
The Internet acts as a medium for many international activities especially
international firms as it allows consumers to connect with them (Mathews &
Healy, 2007). Aspelund and Moen (2004) added that the Internet has the ability
to reduce communication barriers that often occur for geographically dispersed
firms. Thus, the use of the Internet on a long-term basis will create opportunities
for cross border information flow and transaction, while evoking foreign market
expansion of firms (Aspelund & Moen, 2004; Peterson et al., 2002; Quelch &
Klein, 1996). Businesses have been influenced by the evolution of technology of
the Internet (Buttriss & Wilkinson, 2003), as the Internet acts as a medium for
international trade, which has created a most significant advancement in global
strategy (Lynch & Beck, 2001; Melawar & Stead, 2002). Sinkovics & Bell (2006)
added that the Internet is a powerful tool; it has allowed firms to overcome
physical and managerial barriers to internationalisation especially for SMEs, as
they have a limited amount of human and financial resources (Loane, 2006;
Loane & Bell, 2006).
Businesses that conduct their business through Internet platforms have been
described as the SMEs gateway to global business and markets, however, for
entrepreneurial SMEs, the most fundamental and crucial area when using the
31
technology is the willingness to embrace its business potential and the
innovative nature on how the business operates (Ramsey & Ibbotsson, 2006).
Loane and Bell (2006) added that entrepreneurial firms who ignore national
boundaries are generally influenced by globalisation and the impact of
technology as the Internet. Therefore, the Internet in particular has provided a
new way for entrepreneurial SMEs to conduct their business, and an exchange
of information and communication ideas (Loane, 2006). Sinkovics and Penz
(2006) added that the Internet acts as a promoter for international
entrepreneurial business ventures, allowing the firm to quicken their
internationalisation using the Internet as their sales channel (Arenius et al.,
2006). Therefore, the Internet in terms of information processing capabilities
can facilitate and improve the firm’s market knowledge as well as their
international network relationships due to the fact that it allows the firm to have
access to valuable information about the different international markets giving
the firm a competitive advantage in positioning themselves in the market (Nieto
& Fernandez, 2006).
Matthew and Healy (2007) found that the Internet allowed SMEs to have faster
access to competitor information when conducting international business, which
allows SMEs to compete with other large counterpart in foreign market
environment (Glavis & Matthews, 2014; Loane, 2006; Standing and Vasudavan,
2000). The usage of the Internet has reduced international business operating
costs, by allowing for flexible responses to new international market
opportunities (Glavis & Matthews, 2014; Matthews & Healy, 2007). This is also
advantageous for SMEs as they are able to act on international market growth
opportunities and increase international consumers by allowing them to
purchase merchandise through online sales (Glavis & Matthews, 2014;
Matthews, Healy, & Wickramasekera, 2012)
The Internet has been one of the most important tools for international
businesses (Loane, McNaughton, & Bell, 2004; Loane, 2006; Mathews & Healy,
32
2007; Mostafa, Wheeler, & Jones, 2006; Petersen, Welch, & Leisch, 2002). The
Internet allows firms whom have business on international platforms to improve
the efficiency of international market transactions (Gabrielsson & Manek &
Kirpalania, 2004; Loane et al., 2004; Mathews & Healy, 200; Prasad,
Ramamurthy, & Naidu, 2001) such as electronic banking as well as payment.
These include strengthening business partners and relationships
simultaneously, it also significantly improves the collection and exchange of
information related to the international market (Peterson et al., 2002).
However, the Internet does not only allow corporate companies to benefit from
doing international business with other overseas firms, it also plays a vital role
in providing small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) new ways to conduct
international business through faster access to market and competitor
information (Mathews & Healy, 2007). Thus, the Internet has been the best
instrument that has allowed them to compete with larger counterparts in a
foreign market environment (Loane, 2006; Standing & Vasudavan, 2000).
Using the Internet through website applications and user interface platforms,
international entrepreneurs are able to reduce international business operating
costs, thereby, increasing their ability to respond flexibly to new international
market opportunities (Mathews & Healy, 2007). Therefore, international
entrepreneurs are now are able to increase their ability to develop their market
growth opportunities globally with an increase of international consumer sales
due to the Internet (Mathews, Healy, & Wickramasekera, 2012).
The Internet has been noted as a strategic resource that will be able to help
firms achieve their operational performance as well as functionality when
operating in the international market (Li & Ye, 1999). Reuber and Fischer (2001)
found that entrepreneurial resources, such as Internet capabilities are critical for
international entrepreneurs in their pursuit of international business
opportunities, however, the exact impact of the Internet in contributing to the
international business process is unclear.
33
Web 2.0
Creative consumer
Social media
Locus of activity
shifts from the
desktop to the web
Technical
Content Creator Social
Locus of activity
shifts from the
desktop to the
web
Locus of value
productive shift from
the firm to the
consumer
Figure 7: The relationship between Web 2.0, Social media and Creative
consumer (Berthon et al., 2012)
34
Electronic word of mouth
In the early 1990s, with the development of the World Wide Web (www) on
the Internet, many companies tried to introduce electronic commerce (E-
Commerce). The reason for introducing e-commerce is to create a closer
relationship with consumers, at the same time, decreasing operating
overheads (Park and Lee, 2008). The World Wide Web has a marketing
channel for consumers’ post-product reviews (Lee and Li, 2006). The online
reviews act as electronic word-of-mouth advertising for products and services
for corporate (Park and Lee, 2008).
International entrepreneurs-international innovativeness
International entrepreneurs often engage in international innovative behaviour
in order to gain a competitive advantage as well as achieve competitive and
internationally oriented goals (Glavis & Mathews, 2014) such as new product
development in an online context as well as the opening of new markets
through the Internet. However, different scholars from a conceptual view
defined international innovativeness as internationalisation (Knight, 2001;
Ripollé-Meliá et al., 2007), successful international outcomes (Jantunen et al.,
2005; Mostafa et al., 2006; Wiklund & Shepherd, 2005) and technology
(Knight & Causgil, 2004; Wang, 2008). Lumpkin & Dess (1996) suggested
that entrepreneurial orientation gives rise to innovative processes and
practices that maximise the organisational success in the new market. As
more and more firms use the Internet to enter into the international market,
the Internet will soon become saturated and it will no longer be able to be
sufficient for firms to have a competitive advantage, therefore, firms are often
forced to become more innovative with social network when exploring
international market opportunities (Glavis & Mathews, 2014). Research has
suggested that an increase in levels of technological and/or product market
35
innovation also allows the firm to pursue new opportunities (Wiklund &
Sheperd, 2005).
Entrepreneurship innovation and internationalisation are becoming
increasingly intertwined, where innovation is very crucial for flexibility and
proactive management of business activities in a complex and dynamic
international market (Onetti, Zucchella, Jones, & McDougall-Covin, 2012).
This results in international entrepreneurs developing new international
innovations when operating in an online environment to remain competitive in
the international market (Glavas amd Mathews, 2014).
International entrepreneurs-international proactiveness
International proactiveness relates to aggressive positioning relative to
competitors (Glavis & Mathews, 2014) where it mainly focuses on the
execution of tasks in achieving the firm’s international objectives (Knight,
2001; Wiklund & Shepherd, 2005). Some literature (Loane, 2006) suggested
that international entrepreneurs who proactively engage their firm in
international business activities through online platforms will be more likely to
achieve a competitive advantage such as fist-mover advantages in
anticipation of future demand in order to create change and shape the
environment (Lumpkin & Dess, 1996; Mostafa et al., 2006). Jantunen et al.
(2005), Knight and Cavusgil (2004), Wiklund added that firms taking an
international proactive approach allows the international entrepreneurs the
ability to anticipate future needs of the firm and gain a competitive advantage
by pursuing new international market prospects. Wiklund and Shepherd
(2005) pointed out that forward-looking perspective, proactive firms wanting to
become pioneers in their field will exploit emerging international market
opportunities, therefore, international proactiveness within the Internet
environment is referred to an opportunity-seeking, forward-looking perspective
where firms look for new international market opportunities, while anticipating
36
in future international market and technological needs (Glavas and Mathews,
2014).
International entrepreneurs in Africa
Kiss et al (2012) found that factors which facilitate SME internationalization
from Africa appear to be similar to those of advanced economies. Past
business experiences, foreign contacts and an international orientation were
found to facilitate the export venture creation process (Ibeh, 2003), which will
lead to a higher export propensity (Obben and Magagula, 2003). Calof and
Vivers (1995) stressed that the two major obstacles SME internationalization
in Africa face, lie in an inward looking managerial mentality as well as
relatively low export breadth. This was found to be accurate by Robson et al
(2009), in which export was slightly related to the firm’s innovation and growth
in Ghana, on the other hand, South African entrepreneurs synchronize their
cycle of activities with their international consumers, therefore, they were able
to implement better international goals more effectively (Khavul et al., 2010)
In Kenya and Ghana, it was found that it is very difficult to start a business
venture and those businesses are created out of necessity (Chu et al, 2007).
Success in these countries is seen as a result of hard work and quality of
customer services offered by the business (Chu et al, 2007; Kiss et al, 2012)
International entrepreneurs in Asia
Past researchers (Cheng and Yu, 2008; Dana et al, 2009; Lu et al., 2010)
have used a variety of criteria such as different industry settings and
theoretical lenses to explore International Entrepreneurs within the Asian
context, such as mode, strategy and the extent of internationalization (Kiss et
al., 2012)
A majority of Asian firms are involved in direct export (Naudé & Rossouw,
2010), however, some countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam have to
37
overcome a variety of barriers thus forcing them to pursue less in
conventional internationalization strategies such as subcontracting or
clustering which is also known as group internationalization (Berry et al.,
2002; Kiss et al, 2012)
2.1.1 Are international entrepreneurs content driven, creating
informational and social content to create a stronger relationship
quality with the online brand community
Previous researchers have found that online brand communities allow people
to find emotional support, have a sense of belonging as well as
encouragement (Furlong, 1989, Hiltz and Wellman, 1997). However, a social
relationship, reported by Ridings and Gefen (2004) provides friendship and
social support. It also creates trust and increases credibility. In addition, they
concluded that consumers who perceive these social benefits are more likely
to share content and engage in interaction than those who participate in an
online brand corporate.
Brand personality is emphasized on social media networks where the brand
community allows individuals to associate themselves with the brand, thus
resulting in consumer identity (Avis, 2012; Seimiene, 2012; Aaker, 1997;
Davis et al., 2014).
Brands that create a more interactive platform on social network sites, tend to
create a more valued experience for consumers as the interaction between
the consumer and brand becomes more tangible in the mind of the consumer;
it will enhance the subjective experience in which brand consumption revolves
around the co-creation of their constantly changing actual, ideal, social and
virtual selves (Davis et al., 2014). Social media brand consumption focuses
on the interaction experience between the consumer and the brand (Yoo et
al., 2010; Downes and McMillan, 2000, Rafaeli, 1988).
38
However, with brand personality based consumption, consumers participating
in the online community are more likely to increase the diversity of the
community members (Davis et al., 2014) additionally, researchers (Bagozzi
and Dholakia, 2002; Cova and Pace, 2006) found that the online community
tends to lower the importance of members’ social and physical appearance as
well as nonverbal expressions but enhances online content and freedom of
expression.
Consumption is a two-way communication - social media assumes the role
between consumer, brand and community coalescence (David and Sajtos,
2008). As they co-create the experience, they seek personalization (Yoon et
al., 2008; Vlasic and Kesic, 2007; McMillan and Hwang, 2002) and immediate
interactivity (Haeckel, 1998; Hoffman and Novak, 1996). It is a contingent
process of the co-creation of mediated conversation, fuelled by both the
consumer and the advertiser’s need for the benefits that arise from the
interactivity (Yoo et al., 2010; Park and Park, 2009; Trappey and Arch, 2005).
This type of interactivity moves beyond the creation of monologue content.
Cui et al. (2010) argue that this responsiveness mediates other factors such
as social presence cues, which has an important impact on word-of-mouth
and social media communities (Chan and Li, 2010),
Research hypothesis 1: Experiential benefit will have a positive effect on
BSN Relationship Quality.
Research hypothesis 2: Functional benefit will have a positive effect on BSN
Relationship Quality.
Research hypothesis 3: Consumer’s relationships with the brand, product,
company and other consumers on the social media have a positive influence
on the brand trust
39
Research hypothesis 4: International entrepreneur’s informational and social
content drive will have a positive effect on the BSN Relationship Quality
2.1.2 Research Question 2: Do international entrepreneurs create a
product that will have an impression in the consumer memory?
Research hypothesis 5: Brand social network relationship quality will have a
positive effect on Brand Relationship Quality.
Research hypothesis 6: Brand social network relationship quality will have a
positive effect on international entrepreneur’s creativity content drive.
Research hypothesis 7: International entrepreneur’s high innovation and
high proactiveness have a positive effect on the online brand community.
2.1.3 Research Question 3: Does potential consumer and online brand
community rely on word-of-mouth in order to purchase a
product?
Research hypothesis 8: Brand Relationship quality will have a positive effect
on Brand Social network word-of-mouth
Research hypothesis 9: Brand Relationship quality will have a positive effect
on the consumers who are willing to pay the premium price.
Research hypothesis 10: Brand Social Network Relationship Quality will
have an influence on the Brand Social Network Word-of-Mouth
Research hypothesis 11: Brand Social Network word of mouth has a
positive effect on the consumers who are willing to pay the premium price
40
Research hypothesis 12: International entrepreneur’s continuous
engagement on the social media will have a positive effect on online product
reviews.
Consumers would only join an online brand community when they need some
information about products or services (Dholakia and Bagozzi, 2004; Wang
and Fesenmaier, 2004). Consumers may be enthusiastic users who
participate in the online community, i.e. they may be less interested in the
brand and want other benefits from their participation. Moral responsibilities
and social ties that often characterise face-to-face communities may decrease
in the online community (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2002).
Social media brand consumption may only be devoted to specific commercial
or informational objectives rather than social responsibilities and mutual
support.
2.2 Conceptual Research Model
This research study integrates two existing frameworks from Park and Kim
(2014) and Habibi et al. (2014). Park and Kim (2014) argued about the
consumer-brand relationship social network websites, whereas Habibi et al.,
(2014) argued the roles of brand community and community engagement in
building a brand trust within the social media.
41
Figure 8: The role of social network website in the Consumer-brand
relationship (Park and Kim, 2014)
Legend: EB=Experiential benefit, FB= Functional benefit, BSN RQ= Brand
Social Network relationship quality, PRI=Perceived relationship investment,
BSN WOM= Brand Social Network word of mouth, BRQ= Brand Relationship
Quality, WTP= Willingness to Pay.
Habibi et al. (2014) pointed out that brand communities and social media tend
to overlap, thus social media is the ideal environment for building an online
community.
EB
FB PRI BRQ
BSN RQ
WTP
BSN WOM
42
Figure 9: The relationship between the brand community (C-P, C-B, C-Com,
C-Oc) and the brand trust (Habibi et al., 2014)
Legend: C=Customer, P=Product, Com= Company OC= Other, Customers,
BC= Brand Community
The conceptual model for this research study is to understand the social
media marketing components and their influence on international
entrepreneur’s business venture. Therefore, this research study will look at
and test the existing framework and combine it with the international
entrepreneur’s case studies.
Due to insignificant literature and studies done on perceived relationship
investment, it has been omitted in this research study. Therefore, the study
will involve the Experiential benefit, Functional benefit, Brand Social Network
Relationship Quality, Brand Relationship Quality, Brand Social Network Word
C-B
C-P
C-OC
C-Com
BC
Engagement
B Trust
43
of Mouth (BSN WOM) and willingness to pay. In addition, an investigation into
the relationship between the brand community and brand trust is also studied.
Figure 10: Testing the hypothesis (Park and Kim, 2014)
2.3 Conclusion of Literature Review
In conclusion, the research and literature review will show that there is direct
correlation between social media marketing and international entrepreneurial
business venture.
EB
FB BRQ
BSN RQ
WTP
BSN WOM
H1
H2 H5
H10
H8
H9
H11
44
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research methodology/paradigm
This chapter describes the research methodology, design and instrument
including the sample population, the procedure for data collection, data
analysis and interpretation, validity and reliability as well as the statistical
method that will be used to test the research hypothesis. The research
paradigm that has been used for this research study is based on
Interpretivism and Positivist paradigm. Interpretivist research is not solely
based on objective external observation but also observation through direct
experience of people (Mack, 2010). Cohen et al. (2007) stated that the
interpretivist paradigm is to “understand, explain, and demystify social reality
through the eyes of different participant”. The Positivist paradigm purpose is
to prove or disprove a hypothesis, thus, emphasizing the scientific method,
statistical analysis and generalized findings.
This research study involves quantitative and qualitative cross-sectional
research. According to Neuman (2011), cross-sectional research examines
information at one point in time.
The following methodological steps were adopted for the research on
International entrepreneurs (Walsham, 2006):
Step 1: Developing a questionnaire for the fieldwork
Step 2: Choosing the style of involvement (e.g. Outsider researcher or
Involved researcher)
Step 3: Developing codes for all measurement of constructs
Step 3: Obtaining access to the appropriate organization for the fieldwork
45
Step 4: Collecting field data
Step 5: Analysing data
Step 6: Presenting findings
The following methodological steps were adopted for the research on social
media user (Suhr, 2006)
Step 1: Reviewing the relevant literature to support the model
Step 2: Developing questionnaires from past research studies
Step 3: Collecting data through online questionnaires
Step 4: Estimating parameters in the model
Step 5: Assessing model fit
Step 6: Presenting findings
3.2 Research Design
The research study involves a qualitative and quantitative approach. The
methodological approach that was adopted consisted of online interviews and
an online survey. The online interview was done via Skype, Viber, Cisco as
well and face to face whereas the online survey was posted on Google. In
order to ensure data confidentiality, participants were entered as anonymous.
The research questions for the online survey was extracted from previous
studies (Habibi et al., 2014; Kahar, R., Yamimi, F., Bunari, G., & Habil, H.
2012; Park, H., & Kim, Y-K., 2014), however, some measured items were
either omitted or amended based on the generalisation of the nature of social
media users as well as international entrepreneurs. Additional measurement
items related to recent research were added to the existing instrument. There
46
are a few advantages of doing online survey (Cooper and Schindler, 2011;
Neuman, 2006; Wegner, 2010):
It’s very fast and inexpensive
It allows for flexible design and visional images
It can reach local, national and international targeted populations
Data is current and, therefore, is more likely to be accurate
Implementations can be reduced from weeks to days
It allows the participants to think about the question
Participants are entered as anonymous
However, there are also disadvantages in using an online survey (Cooper and
Schindler, 2011; Neuman, 2006; Wegner, 2010):
Sampling a specific user group is difficult due to the limited email
addresses
Not all potential respondents have access to the Internet
There will be a low response rate
The complex design of the online survey and some software is difficult
to run online
Some respondents will experience anxiety
Protecting respondents’ privacy is necessary
Interview questionnaires were extracted from previous studies (Cabiddu, De
Carlo and Piccoli 2014; Chui, Hsu and Wang, 2006; Park, Kim 2014.
Interviews were held either online via Skype, Viber or Cisco or face-to-face.
There are advantages of having an online interview (Neuman, 2006; Wegner,
2010):
It allows a quicker contact with geographically dispersed respondents
If respondents are not available, callbacks can be made
The cost is low when compared to personal surveys
47
Respondents are willing to talk on the telephone as they feel safe at
home
Interviewer probing is possible and thus, questions can be controlled
Questions can be clarified by the interviewer
The use of aided-recall questions is possible
A large sample can be reached within a short space period of time
There is a higher response rate
95 percent of the populations can be reached for a telephonic interview
It is very flexible
The disadvantage of having a telephonic interview (Neuman, 2006; Wegner,
2010):
It is very expensive
The interview length is limited
Some respondents don’t have telephones and they are unreachable
Interview calls may cause inconvenience to respondents
It reduces anonymity and introduces potential interviewer bias
Open questions are difficult to use
Serious disruptions and respondents tone and hesitancy can influence
the interviewer
Non-verbal response can influence interview
Interviewers need to be trained which increases the cost price
Respondents could possibly terminate the interview prematurely by
ending the session (e.g. putting the telephone down)
Face-to-face interviews were conducted and there are advantages to them
(Neuman, 2006; Wegner, 2010)
Longer questions are possible
A higher response rate is occasionally achieved
Data collection is immediate and it reflects the current reality
48
Greater data accuracy is achieved
The above is useful when the required data is of a technical nature
Non verbal language can be observed (e.g. body language, facial
expression)
More questions can be asked
Responses are spontaneous and, thus, more likely to be valid
Recall questions and other visual prompts are possible.
According to Neuman, (2006) and Wegner, (2010), the disadvantages of
conducting face-to-face interviews are
It is time consuming
It requires trained interviewer and this increases the costs
Fewer interviews are conducted due to financial costs and time
constraints
Interviewers can influence and add bias to the data
Interviewer’s wording, tone of voice and appearance can influence the
respondent’s response
An ethical consideration has been taken into account when designing the
research. The purpose of the study as well as the respondents’ rights and
protection of personal information was explained to the respondents and the
international entrepreneurs were briefed about the research study. An email
explaining respondent’s rights and protection of the data with the interview
questions was sent to both parties. All respondents (Social media users’ and
international entrepreneurs’) rights to privacy were protected during the data
collection process.
The computer programme software, Gephi 0.8 beta which is an open source
software (http://gephi.org/), was used to analyse the social network of the
international entrepreneurs. Nodes were used to calculate the strength of the
network ties between the international entrepreneurs and their consumer. The
49
social network aggregator was used to keep any personal or sensitive
information of the social media user and the international entrepreneur’s
identity antonymous. The social media identification, the social network URL
as well as the web content was kept confidential
50
Table 2: Summary of the different types of surveys used in this research study
(Neuman, 2006)
Telephonic interview Face-to-Face interview Web Survey
Cost Moderate Expensive Cheap
Speed Fast Slow to moderate Fastest
Length of questionnaire Short Longest Moderate
Response rate Moderate Fastest Moderate
Probes possible Yes Yes No
Specific respondents Yes Yes No
Question sequence Yes Yes Yes
Open ended question Restricted Yes Yes
Sensitive question Restricted Restricted Yes
Social desirability Some Worst No
Interviewer bias Some Worst No
Respondent’s reading
skill
No No moderate
51
3.2.1 Population
The sampling frame of participants consisted of social media network and
SMEs, whereas the sample populations were social media users and
international entrepreneurs.
A proper representation of the sample populations was determined to ensure
that there was:
A Social Media Network
The target populations included social media users and international
entrepreneurs who use the social media as leverage to market their
business venture. A list of the social media network is provided in
appendix C
SMEs
Due to privacy of the respondent, a list of the SMEs is not provided
3.3 Sample and sampling method
It is assumed that the sample of the respondents represents the social media
network and the SME’s. The aim was to build a sample size of 200 (n=200)
and 11 (n=11) respectively.
A link to the online survey was copied on several respective social media
networks in order to reach all respondents and they in turn were asked to
choose their network in order to partake in the survey. These social media
networks were used:
Facebook (www.facebook.com)
Twitter (www.twitter.com)
YouTube (www.youtube.com)
52
MySpace (https://myspace.com)
Flickr (www.flickr.com)
Vimeo (www.vimeo.com)
LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)
WordPress (www.wordpress.com)
Tumblr (www.tumblr.com)
Google+ ( https://plus.google.com/)
The international entrepreneurs’ sample frame consisted of entrepreneurs
with international firms who utilize the social media as a marketing tool for the
business. They were interviewed through Skype, Cisco and Viber that were
recommended by the Business development Centre in South Africa, India and
USA.
A total of 200 surveys were sent out via through the social network sites.
Overall, a total of 143 survey questionnaires were completed, 11 were
unusable or incomplete and 46 respondents did not participate.
A total of 90 males and 53 females responded to this research paper. The age
of the participants ranged from 19 to 54 with a mean age of 37.8 (Standard
deviation 7.19) and the age range for females was from 18 to 65, with an
average age of 30.12 (standard deviation 10.71). The average age for males’
was between 15-20 (6.8%), whereas, females in the same group were about
4.0%. Additionally, 20.3% of males and 25.7% of females were from the 21-30
year age group. There are more males who filled out the form than females in
the 31-40 year age group (8.1% to 3.7% respectively). However, there was
the same number for both sexes (1.4%) in the 41-50 year age group. There
was only one female who was >50. 30.77% of the social media users have
obtained their undergraduate degree (20.98% male and 9.79% female).
53
3.4 The research instrument
The research instrument was designed to test the research questions and to
provide the data for testing the six research hypothesis. The online survey for
the social media was a closed questionnaire which consisted of 14 sections or
parts and a total of 44 closed ended questions. The survey was posted online
and the results were captured through a remote online system, Google
(www.google.com). The questionnaires are presented in Appendix A.
The online survey for the international entrepreneurs was an open and closed
questionnaire which consisted of 16 closed questions and 1 open question.
The survey was posted online and the results were captured through a remote
online system, Google (www.google.com). The questionnaires are presented
in Appendix A
The interview questions for the international entrepreneurs consisted of 4
open questions; a progress monitor for the usage of the social media network
was included. The questionnaires and progress monitor are presented in
Appendix A.
Social media users
The questionnaires for the social media network consisted of the following
parts:
Biographical information – This section focuses on the biographical
information of the respondents such as the brand name that the respondent
will be referring to for the survey, the job level, education level and gender.
Experiential benefits (Q1 - Q6) – This section focuses on experiential benefit
which examines how consumers perceive the benefit from using the Brand
Social Network. The aim of this question is to answer research question 1 and
research question 2. This section also included questions from Park and Kim
54
(2014). A seven point scale was used; the levels are1-Strongly disagree and
7-Strongly agree.
Functional benefit (Q7 – Q13) – This section focuses on functional benefit
which examines how consumers view information posted on the Internet by
the brand. This section also included questions from Park and Kim (2014). A
seven point scale was used; the levels are1-Strongly disagree and 7-Strongly
agree.
BSN Relationship Quality (Q14 – Q26) – This section focuses on the
strength between the consumer and the relationship with brand on the Brand
Social Network, according to Hennig-Thurau and Klee (1997), they argued
that the interaction between the consumer and the company through the
service they provide is the most crucial point, this will give the consumer
perception of the service quality they are receiving as this is a fundamental
feature of a buyer-seller relationship. Rauyruen and Miller (2007) pointed out
that the fundamental component of the relationship quality is the quality of
service; however, they added that there are other components such trust and
commitment that are needed. Within this context of study, there are three
dimensions ( Commitment, trust and partner quality) are selected to represent
the Brand Social Network Quality in which the constructed items are adapted
from Park et al. (2005), that examined a consumer-brand relationship within
an online environment. A seven point scale was used; the levels are1-
Strongly disagree and 7-Strongly agree.
BSN Relationship (Q27 – Q29) – This section focuses on the consumers
commitment to the brand community (Zhou et al., 2012) . This section also
included questions from Park and Kim (2014). A seven point scale was used;
the levels are1-Strongly disagree and 7-Strongly agree.
Brand Relationship Quality (Q30 – Q32) – This section focuses on the
relationship between the consumer and the brand (Smit et al., 2007), the
55
Brand Relationship Quality measurement constructs reflects the broad
spectrum that contributes to the consumer-brand relationships (Huber et al.,
2010). This section includes a seven point scale that was used; the levels are
1-Strongly disagree and 7-Strongly agree.
BSN WOM (Q33 – Q36) – This section focuses on the consumer where they
give reviews on the product, the measurement constructs are adapted from
Carroll and Ahuvia (2006) in which it reflects the context of Brand Social
Network with relations to word of mouth. This section includes a seven point
scale that was used; the levels are1-Strongly disagree and 7-Strongly agree.
Willingness to pay for premium (Q37-Q38) – This section focuses on the
consumer loyalty to the brand, by examining their willingness to pay for a
higher price for a particular brand even though it is available elsewhere at a
lower price (Chaudhuri and Ligas, 2009). This section also included questions
from Park and Kim (2014). A seven point scale was used; the levels are1-
Strongly disagree and 7-Strongly agree.
International Entrepreneurs interview
There were three sections in the interview. The first section aimed at
understanding the overview of the company such as their history, competitor
as well as consumer base. The second section focused on the type of social
media platform the company uses (e.g. Facebook, Twitter etc.) and the third
section investigated how the company implements their brand on the social
media. Interviews were done online via Skype, Cisco and Viber.
56
3.5 Procedure for data collection
The data was collected through the online questionnaires.
Social media users
A survey was sent out on several social media networks with an invitation for
participants to fill in the questionnaires. Participants were notified that
information collected will remain anonymous and should they want the results,
an email address was provided for easy access. Participants had to agree to
have their information recorded; they also had the option to opt out. If the
participant chose the opt-out button, the participants were redirected to the
end of the survey. Data was collected and was screened for any incomplete
surveys.
International entrepreneurs
Business development centres (African Association of Entrepreneurs) referred
some international entrepreneurs to participate in the research paper. The
business development centres are located in various parts of the world
namely South Africa, Ghana, India and the USA.
Multiple case studies as well as online surveys were used for this research
paper. The reason for using multiple case studies was to give a more holistic
and dynamic view of the complex research area, i.e. the influence of Internet
capabilities on international business ventures. A one-hour interview was
conducted with founding international entrepreneurs in South Africa, India,
Ghana and the United States of America. These SMEs operate internationally
and utilise the Internet for their international business transactions. The
significant part of the interview included questions about the business owners’
usage and integration of Internet technologies within the firm. After the
interview, the owners were notified that their social media would be
57
monitored, i.e. specifically the messages they post and how many consumers
respond to them over a period of 8 weeks.
3.6 Data analysis and interpretation
The data collected from the online survey for the social media user, was
tested using structural modelling equation (SEM) using SAS 9.2. According to
Anderson and Gerbing (1988), a two-step approach should be used to
validate the measurement construct and to test the proposed hypothesis.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was firstly conducted to see whether the
measurement construct reliability reflected the hypothesis latent construct
Social media users
A correlation and content analysis was done on the survey and interview
respectively. The questionnaires was taken from various literatures and were
had modified to address the research. Measurement of the consumer’s
relationship with a brand was taken from McAlexandra et al (2002). Surveys
from Chaudhuri and Holbrook (2001) were used to measure consumer
relationship and brand trust. Two questions from Chaudhuri and Krishan was
added to measure consumer/company relationship. Algesheimer et al. (2005)
questionnaires were used to measure community engagement. The survey
was based on a 7-point likert scale in which (1) represents "Strongly disagree”
and (7) represents “strongly agree”.
To test the model, SAS 9.3 was used to conduct the structural equation model
of the sample. Therefore it will involve the analysis of the measurement model
and then it will focus on structural relationships among latent constructs.
Conformity factor analysis will be applied to construct validity of the company
brand, community interaction, hours spent on the social media, posts being
uploaded onto social media, social interaction and knowledge sharing.
58
As Fornell and Larcker suggested, a convergent validity of the scales will be
verified with three criteria’s, namely, all indicators loading should be significant
and exceed 0.7, reliabilities should exceed 0.8 and the average variance
extracted from each construct will have to exceed the variance due to the
measurement error for that construct.
International entrepreneurs
The interviews ranged from half an hour to one hour in length, each was
recorded and transcribed verbatim which generated about 43 pages of audio
transcript. The analysis proceeded through various stages. In the first stage of
the analysis of the interview audio, a provisional list of codes created from the
studies done by Miles and Huberman (1994) was used and compared. An
example of the code is found in appendix D.
The international Entrepreneurs Social Network Analysis was tested using
Gephi 0.82 Beta. Social Network Analysis is the methodical analysis of social
networks (Akhtar, 2014) in which it views the social relationship in terms of the
network theory, consisting of nodes and ties. There are two types of network
analysis, ego network analysis and complete network analysis. In this
research, complete network analysis was used, as it allows the researcher to
analyze the relationship between the nodes (International entrepreneurs and
online social media users).
Codes were assigned to online users as well as for the action taken between
the online social media user and the international entrepreneurs, the codes
are given in appendix F.
59
3.7 Validity and reliability
3.7.1 Internal validity
Cronbach alpha will be used to validate the internal consistency of the
instrument.
3.7.2 Reliability
Results that were obtained from this research paper will be compared with
previous literature paper.
International entrepreneurs using the social media
The analysis of the interview will go through several rounds of coding with
Nivivo 9. Within the first round, a provisional list of codes (Miles & Huberman,
1994) will be derived (Appendix 3) from the conceptual model (Appendix 7).
To improve the reliability of the analysis, a second round of coding will be
implemented, in which themes will be identified independently that will emerge
from interview (Krippendorf, 2004)
Internal consistency
To evaluate the internal consistency, the Cronbach alphas (Cronbach, 1970)
will be calculated.
Discriminate and convergent validity
To assess the construct validity, a five-factor conformity model with all latent
constraints in the model was used (i.e. four customer centered relationship
and brand trust).
60
Validity of survey
To assess the construct validity of the survey, the results obtained will be
compared with past research work done by Park (2011)
3.8 Limitations of the study
This research has several limitations:
By using the Interpretivist research, it has to abandon the scientific
procedures of verifications therefore results generated by research
cannot be generalised to other situations. Although the research study
consisted of several international entrepreneurs from different
countries, there is a need to increase the sample and population size of
the international entrepreneurs from the same and different countries.
The measurement of the model is weak as it was mainly generated by
two constructs, namely Brand relationship Quality as well as Brand
Social Network relationship quality.
The measurement construct, Brand Relationship Quality, does not
necessarily serve as a basis for consumers to join the Brand Social
Network, as it is possible that there are pre-existing relationship
qualities between the brand and the consumer.
There is not enough significant past research on the functional benefits
on BSN relationship quality.
3.9 Chapter conclusion
This chapter focused on the methodology, sample population and size,
research instrument, the data gathering procedure and the statistical method
that was used to test the research hypothesis and answer the research
questions.
61
There were a number of limitations to the research study but it is still
adequate to test the research hypothesis and answer the research questions.
62
CHAPTER 4. PRESENTATION OF RESULTS
In this chapter, data analysis of the research study will be reported in
accordance with the research methodology chapter. Data will be presented in
the form of a table
4.1 Introduction
According to table 2, there is a high number of social media user that is found
between the ages of 21-30. However, females using the social media tend to
decline between the ages of 31-40 but remain constant. Males usage of the
social media tend to peak between the ages of 31-40 but decline rapidly
between the ages of 41-50+.
Females tend to use the social media more often then their counterpart, 94%
spend more than 6 hours per week on the social media comparing that to
55%. Most social media user tend to spend less than 1 hour on the social
media and the reason could be due to the convenience of technology such as
smartphones, laptop as well as ipad.
Males tend to be visit sports brand online, which is consistent with the entire
sports brand such as Nike and Adidas. Interestingly, females spend their time
on the Coca Cola brand. This could be due to the fact that Coca-Cola, have
changed their marketing strategy and brand message focusing more on family
and well as corporate social responsibility.
63
Table 3: Demographic of social media user
Male (n=90) Female (n=53)
Age
15-20 6.8 % 4.0 %
21-30 20.3 % 25.7 %
31-40 25.7 % 8.1 %
41-50 1.4 % 1.4 %
>50 0.0 % 1.4 %
Social network usage (hours per week)
< 1 Hour 13.0 % 29.0 %
2-3 Hours 29.0% 24.0 %
4-5 Hours 45.0 % 82.0 %
>6 Hours 55.0 % 94.0 %
Most popular brand visit online
Adidas 14.0 % 4.7 %
Apple 9.3 % 2.3 %
Coca Cola 14.0 % 16.3 %
Nike 14.0 % 14.0 %
Samsung 7.0 % 4.7 %
64
Table 4: Most popular social media network used by social media users and
the hours spent per week
Social media network N (%) Hours spent (%)
< 1 Hour 2-3
Hours
4-5
Hours
>6 Hours
1 Facebook 25 0.29% 0.29% 0.44% 9.93%
2 LinkedIn 5 1.46% 0.15% 0.15% 2.04%
3 Twitter 1 0.15% 1.75% 4.38% 6.13%
4 YouTube 24 0.15% 0.15% 1.17% 2.34%
5 Flickr 25 0.29% 0.15% 0.44% 5.11%
6 Vimeo 2 3.65% 0.44% 2.04% 0.73%
7 MySpace 2 0.73% 0.29% 0.05% 1.31%
8 Tumblr 14 0.15% 2.04% 0.29% 0.15%
9 Google+ 7 3.50% 1.02% 0.29% 4.67%
10 Other: WordPress 15 3.65% 2.19% 0.29% 0.29%
65
Most of the social media users spend more time on Facebook, followed by
twitter and Flickr. However with the introduction of Google+ in 2011, and after
4 years, many users are becoming more comfortable in using the social
platform comparing that to Facebook which was launched in 2004. It is not
surprising to see most social media user spend less time on blogs such as
WordPress and Tumblr.
Social media user spend less time on YouTube, and this could be due to
Internet bandwidth in some countries, therefore it is more convenient for
social media user to use Facebook, as it require less time to download
newsfeed.
There is a variety of educational and job level Social Media user respondents
(Table 4) for this research studies (Table 5), an overall of 6 Phd (4.1%), 22
Masters (14.9%), 42 University honours degree (28.4%), 44 University
undergraduate degree (29.7%), 27 Pre-university (18.2%) and 7 Grade 12
(4.7%).
An online survey was sent to social media users through Facebook, and
Google+. The survey showed that the majority of social media users lie within
the “middle/lower management, specialist” as well as the “Not management,
professional or specialist area” (Table 5)
66
Table 5: Respondents profile (Social media user)
TYPE OF RESPONDENTS
Position Education level N (%)
Senior
management
PhD 4 (3)
Master’s Degree 6 (4)
University honours degree (Including 4th year of
engineering and the like 9( 6)
University undergraduate degree or BTech 2 (1)
Pre-university but post school diploma (e.g. 1-year
certified diploma in bookkeeping 4(3)
Middle/ lower
management
or professional
University honours degree (Including 4th year of
engineering and the like 22 (15)
University undergraduate degree or BTech 30 (20)
Pre-university but post school diploma (e.g. 1-year
certified diploma in bookkeeping
6 (4)
67
Specialist
technical
PhD 1 (0.7)
Master’s Degree 15 (10)
University honours degree (Including 4th year of
engineering and the like 10 (7)
University undergraduate degree or BTech 7 (5)
Pre-university but post school diploma (e.g. 1-year
certified diploma in bookkeeping 2 (1)
Not
management,
professional or
specialist
Master’s Degree 1 (0.7)
University honours degree (Including 4th year of
engineering and the like 1 (0.6)
University undergraduate degree or BTech 5 (3.4%)
Pre-university but post school diploma (e.g. 1-year
certified diploma in bookkeeping 15 (10)
Grade 12 of high school ( ≥18 years old) 7 (5)
68
Table 6: Social media user job level and their usage on the social network site
Job level of social media users Hours spent per week on the social network site
(%)
<1 hours 2-3 hours 4-5 hours >6 hours
Senior management 5.0 % 2.0 % 7.5 % 1.0%
Middle/ lower management or
professional
9.1 % 7.5% 6.5 % 5.5%
Specialist technical 6.5 % 5.8 % 5.0 % 6.0 %
Not management, professional or
specialist
8.0 % 4.0 % 2.0 % 9.0 %
Senior management tend to spend less time on social media platform as
opposed to “middle/ lower management or professional”, “Specialist” and “Not
management, professional or specialist”. This corresponds to Table 5 in which
only 25 “senior managers” use social media whereas 29 are “not
management, professional or specialist”, 35 “Specialist technical” and 58 are
from “middle/lower management or professional”.
69
Table 7: Comparing the Assessment of normality between the survey response and Park (2011)
Survey Park (2011)
Construct Item Min Max Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis
Experiential
benefit
1 1 7 4.676 1.980 -0.632 -0.779 4.65 1.703 -0.402 -0.621
2 1 7 4.716 1.855 -0.730 -0.488 4.80 1.660 -0.500 -0.542
3 1 7 4.331 2.088 -0.376 -1.217 4.88 1.460 -0.358 -0.355
4 1 7 4.730 1.975 0.702 -0.685 4.44 1.761 -0.268 -0.854
5 1 7 4.351 2.131 -0.439 -1.253 4.62 1.741 -0.362 -0.730
6 1 7 3.486 2.328 0.480 -0.757 Data unavailable
70
Survey Park (2011)
Construct Item Min Max Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis
Functional
Benefits
7 1 7 3.585 2.491 0.454 -0.748 5.48 1.267 -0.690 0.156
8 1 7 4.716 1.877 -0.587 -0.290 5.48 1.198 -0.587 0.256
9 1 7 4.622 1.786 -0.496 -0.535 5.37 1.248 -0.532 0.034
10 1 7 3.938 1.794 -0.103 -0.985 Data unavailable
11 1 7 4.507 2.002 -0.330 -0.855 5.65 1.253 -0.902 0.916
12 1 7 4.588 1.881 -0.562 -0.686 5.59 1.177 -0.550 -0.228
13 1 7 4.149 2.110 -0.348 -1.189 Data unavailable
71
Survey Park (2011)
Construct Item Min Max Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis
BSN
relationship
quality
14 1 7 4.020 2.168 -0.217 -1.405 3.86 1.932 0.037 1.167
15 1 7 3.705 2.121 -0.055 -1.428 3.61 1.942 0.156 -1.152
16 1 7 3.865 2.137 -0.0801 -1.219 4.52 1.771 -0.373 -0.682
17 1 7 2.600 2.470 1.229 0.488 4.04 2.037 -0.159 -1.270
18 1 7 2.541 2.134 1.121 0.368 3.86 2.013 0.021 -1.245
19 1 7 3.115 2.409 0.896 -0.045 4.77 1.597 -0.449 -0.315
20 1 7 4.415 1.872 -0.379 -0.888 Data unavailable
72
21 1 7 4.531 1.953 -0.394 -0.793 Data unavailable
22 1 7 4.669 1.853 -0.505 -0739 Data unavailable
23 1 7 4.101 2.163 -0.312 -1.401 4.01 2.003 -0.148 -1.175
24 1 7 4.236 1.963 -0.440 -1.031 Data unavailable
25 1 7 4.115 2.075 -0.192 -1.254 4.66 1.621 -0.377 -0.494
26 1 7 3.986 2.010 -0.251 -1.254 4.71 1.669 -0.462 -0.382
73
Survey Park (2011)
Construct Item Min Max Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis
BSN
Relationship
27 1 7 4.503 1.694 -0.585 -0.431 5.32 1.304 -0.560 0.074
28 1 7 4.581 1.682 -0.551 -0.378 5.28 1.378 -0.625 0.076
29 1 7 4.689 1.694 -0.668 -0.230 5.29 1.319 -0.593 0.209
74
Survey Park (2011)
Construct Item Min Max Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis
Brand
Relationship
Quality
30 1 7 4.419 1.913 -0.509 -0.868 4.61 1.716 -0.520 -0.486
31 1 7 3.562 1.993 0.777 -0.820 4.84 1.544 -0.503 -0.146
32 1 7 3.041 2.086 0.219 -1.029 4.70 1.685 -0.424 -0.487
75
Survey Park (2011)
Construct Item Min Max Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis
BSN WOM
33 1 7 3.898 2.063 -0.042 -1.130 4.48 1.842 -0.417 -0.860
34 1 7 3.885 2.143 -0.038 -1.268 4.30 1.864 -0.290 -0.965
35 1 7 3.685 2.094 0.056 -1.217 4.70 1.718 -0.502 -0.571
36 1 7 3.905 2.200 -0.061 -1.404 4.62 1.797 -0.463 -0.659
76
Survey Park (2011)
Construct Item Min Max Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis Mean STD Skewness Kurtosis
Willingness
to pay
premium
37 1 7 4.061 2.123 -0.249 -1.094 4.73 1.687 -0.552 -0.419
38 1 7 4.595 1.927 -0.722 -0.642 4.99 1.535 -0.649 -0.003
Note
*The mean score was based on a 7-poimt likert scale (1=Strongly disagree and 7=Strongly agree) *Key: Item code (Appendix B)
77
The reliabilities of the construct are presented in table 8 and table 9.
According to Nunnally and Bernstein (1994), they suggested composite
reliability should be above 0.70 for internal consistency. The range from the
construct for this research study is between 0.745 and 0.944, which shows
internal consistency.
Table 8: comparison of Construct and Composite reliability between the
survey and Park (2011)
Survey Park (2011)
Construct Number of items Composite
reliability Number of items
Composite
reliability
Experiential benefit 6 0.913 7 0.946
Functional benefit 7 0.857 7 0.923
BSN relationship
quality 13 0.932 13 0.964
BSN Relationship 3 0.944 3 0.897
Brand relationship
quality 3 0.944 3 0.895
BSN WOM 4 0.906 4 0.943
Willingness to pay
premium 2 0.745 2 0.936
78
Many researchers have explored motivations or the benefits of using online
consumer communities, which is related to the social aspects. Within this
research paper, the social benefit is defined as a consumers’ perception of the
extent to which Brand Social Network offers social benefits. These include
interaction and communication with other consumers. As the items for social
benefit questions were adopted from Dholakia et al. (2009), it measured social
media users on how they perceived social benefit from a certain brand.
The informational benefit section (Functional benefit and experiential benefit)
of the Brand social network measures a consumer’s perception of the extent
to which a BSN offers informational resources such as brand information and
news of the product, events or activities.
The Brand Social Network relationship quality is the consumers overall
assessment of strength of his/ her relationship with the Brand Social Network.
The construct for the perceived relationship investment is to understand the
consumers’ perception on how much the brand devotes its resources, efforts,
and attention in maintaining or enhancing relationships with the consumer.
Brand relationship quality is a measure of the brand community, while Brand
Social Network. BSN WOM, for this construct is defined as how the consumer
praises a Brand Social Network to others.
Willingness to pay price premium assesss how loyal the consumer is towards
the brand, the construct is to see if a consumer is willing to pay a higher price
for a particular brand item when it is less expensive elsewhere (Chaidhuri &
Ligas, 2009).
79
Table 9: Final measurement model: Factor loadings and reliability (Survey)
Variable Factor
Loading t-value
Composite
reliability
The social aspects of (#brand)’s Facebook
page are important to me
0.83 ----
0.948
On (#brand)’s Facebook page, I get to know
other people who are interested in this brand
0.81 30.38***
I enjoy communicating with other members
on (#brand)’s FB page
0.85 26.80***
I enjoy browsing and/or participating in
(#brand)’s FB page
0.80 27.46***
Browsing and/or participating in (#brand)’s FB
page enriches my life
0.84 26.76***
The information provided by (#brand)’s FB
page is valuable
0.15 -----
0.813
The information provided by (#brand)’s FB
page is useful
0.59 8.18***
(#brand)’s FB page provides information at an
appropriate level of detail
0.56 8.14***
(#brand)’s FB page provides special offers
(e,g. discounts, promotions) for me.
0.62 7.72***
(#brand)’s FB page provides updates on
upcoming sales
0.59 6.87***
80
(#brand)’s FB page plays an important role in
my daily life
0.81 7.72***
0.932
I feel something is amiss when I stop using
(#brand)’s FB page
0.85 6.87***
I have made a commitment to (#brand)’s FB
page
0.84 17.64***
I am willing to make sacrifices to keep using
(#brand)’s FB page
0.40 18.24***
I will stay with (#brand)’s FB page through
good times and bad times
0.45 5.87***
(#brand)’s FB page adds a sense of stability
to my life
0.47 7.39***
(#brand)’s FB page treats me like a valuable
customer
0.89 25.17***
(#brand)’s FB page shows continuing interest
in me
0.82 18.02***
(#brand)’s FB page takes good care of me 0.84 16.72***
(#brand)’s makes efforts to increase
customers’ loyalty
0.87 17.50***
0.944
(#brand)’s makes various efforts to improve
its ties with customers
0.76 17.59***
(#brand) really cares about keeping
customers
0.76 16.11***
81
(#brand) says a lot about the kind of person I
am
0.70 3.57***
0.567 (#brand)’s image and my self-image are
similar in many respects
0.76 1.73***
(#brand) plays an important role in my life 0.42 6.72***
I have recommended (#brand)’s FB page to
lots of people
0.32 4.32***
0.879
I ‘talk up’ (#brand)’s FB page to my friends 0.83 6.43***
I try to spread the good word about (#brand)’s
FB page
0.80 6.72***
I give (#brand)’s FB page lots of positive
word-of-mouth advertising
0.70 ----
I would be willing to pay a higher price for
(#brand) over other similar brands
0.66 12.89***
0.746
I prefer to purchase from (#brand) even if
another brand advertises a lower price
0.68 ----
82
Table 10: Final measurement model: Factor loadings and reliability (Park,
2011)
Construct Variable Factor
Loading t-value
Composite
reliability
Experiential
benefit
The social aspects of (#brand)’s Facebook
page are important to me
0.890 ---
0.932
On (#brand)’s Facebook page, I get to
know other people who are interested in
this brand
0.799 21.024**
I enjoy communicating with other members
on (#brand)’s FB page
0.812 21.626***
I enjoy browsing and/or participating in
(#brand)’s FB page
0.883 25.580***
Browsing and/or participating in (#brand)’s
FB page enriches my life
0.890 25.769***
Functional benefit
The information provided by (#brand)’s FB
page is valuable
0.862 ---
0.918
The information provided by (#brand)’s FB
page is useful
0.872 23.069***
(#brand)’s FB page provides information at
an appropriate level of detail
0.876 23.196***
(#brand)’s FB page provides special offers
(e,g. discounts, promotions) for me.
0.750 17.666***
(#brand)’s FB page provides updates on
upcoming sales
0.791 18.032***
83
BSN relationship
quality
(#brand)’s FB page plays an important role
in my daily life
0.880 ----
0.964
I feel something is amiss when I stop using
(#brand)’s FB page
0.844 26.515
I have made a commitment to (#brand)’s
FB page
0.865 25.266***
I am willing to make sacrifices to keep
using (#brand)’s FB page
0.868 24.545***
I will stay with (#brand)’s FB page through
good times and bad times
0.896 30.512***
(#brand)’s FB page adds a sense of
stability to my life
0.846 20.379***
(#brand)’s FB page treats me like a
valuable customer
0.906 27.079***
(#brand)’s FB page shows continuing
interest in me
0.846 23.059***
(#brand)’s FB page takes good care of me 0.828 19.886***
BSN relationship
(#brand)’s makes efforts to increase
customers’ loyalty
0.863 22.218***
0.897
(#brand)’s makes various efforts to
improve its ties with customers
0.866 22.394***
(#brand) really cares about keeping
customers
0.858 ----
84
Brand Relationship
Quality
(#brand) says a lot about the kind of
person I am
0.832 22.136***
0.894 (#brand)’s image and my self-image are
similar in many respects
0.864 23.839***
(#brand) plays an important role in my life 0.882 ----
BSN Word of
mouth
I have recommended (#brand)’s FB page
to lots of people
0.915 29.966***
0.947
I ‘talk up’ (#brand)’s FB page to my friends 0.887 24.240***
I try to spread the good word about
(#brand)’s FB page
0.901 28.476***
I give (#brand)’s FB page lots of positive
word-of-mouth advertising
0.911 ----
Willingness to pay
price premium
I would be willing to pay a higher price for
(#brand) over other similar brands
0.864 21.777***
0.858
I prefer to purchase from (#brand) even if
another brand advertises a lower price
0.870 ----
85
Table 11: Correlation matrix of constructs (Survey)
Experiential
Benefit
Functional
Benefit
BSN
relationship
quality
BSN
relationship
Brand
Relationship
quality
BSN WOM
Willingness
to pay price
premium
Experiential Benefit 1
Functional Benefit 0.36238 1
BSN relationship quality 0.50228 0.19405 1
BSN relationship -0.13902 0.1994 0.18711 1
Brand Relationship quality 0.13135 -0.1186 0.02481 0.3151 1
BSN WOM 0.22899 -0.14163 0.32275 0.16626 0.00662 1
Willingness to pay price
premium -0.04477 0.12834 0.04587 0.20643 0.07707 0.36181 1
86
Table 12: Correlation matrixes construct (Park, 2011)
Experiential
Benefit
Functional
Benefit
BSN
relationship
quality
BSN
relationship
Brand
Relationship
quality
BSN WOM
Willingness
to pay price
premium
Experiential Benefit 1
Functional Benefit 0.722 1
BSN relationship quality 0.909 0.648 1
BSN relationship 0.713 0.873 0.697 1
Brand Relationship quality 0.844 0.730 0.899 0.827 1
BSN WOM 0.882 0.664 0.922 0.708 0.833 1
Willingness to pay price premium 0.737 0.725 0.796 0.811 0.930 0.767 1
87
There are a few strong correlation namely experiential benefit and BSN relationship
quality as well as experiential benefit and Functional Benefit.
There are also a few negative correlations between the measurement construct
namely experiential benefit and BSN relationship, functional benefit and BSN
relationship quality and functional benefit and BSN WOM. Both the functional and
experiential between are informational benefit.
Results obtained from the survey and the results from Park (2011) reflects that the
results are not the same. This could be due to different brand community being used
as well as product preference.
88
Table 13: Structural path, correlation and t-value
Structural path Standard
Est.
Standard
error t-value
Experiential benefits → Brand
social network relationship quality
0.455 0.513 8.87***
Functional benefit → Brand community on
social network relationship quality 0.344 0.570 6.041***
Brand Social Network Relationship Quality
→ Brand Relationship Quality 0.677 0.035 19.355***
Brand Social Network Relationship Quality
→ BSN WOM 0.586 0.042 13.811***
Brand Relationship Quality →BSN WOM 0.804 0.023 35.178***
Brand Relationship Quality → Willingness
to pay price premium 0.441 0.052 8.475***
BSN WOM → Willingness to pay price
premium 0.716 0.0315 22.732***
***p<0.001
89
Research hypothesis 1: Experiential benefit will have a positive effect on BSN
Relationship Quality. In this result, it has shown that consumers who have some
experience with the product and have benefitted from it; tend to build a stronger
brand social network relationship with the company. Therefore, research hypothesis
one is supported.
Research hypothesis 2: Functional benefit will have a positive effect on BSN
Relationship Quality. Consumers, whom have used the product and have seen it via
the Internet, tend to build a stronger relationship in the brand community on the
social network and therefore fail to reject research hypothesis 2.
Research hypothesis 5: Brand social network relationship quality will have a
positive effect on Brand Relationship Quality. The relationship between Brand social
network relationship quality and brand relationship was significant (p<0001),
therefore research hypothesis 5 is supported.
Research hypothesis 8: Brand Relationship quality will have a positive effect on
Brand Social network word-of-mouth. The relationship between Brand social network
relationship quality and Social Network word-of mouth was significant (p<0001),
therefore research hypothesis 8 is supported.
Research hypothesis 9: Brand Relationship quality will have a positive effect on the
consumers who are willing to pay the premium price. The relationship between
Brand relationship quality and the willingness to pay the premium was significant
(p<0001), therefore research hypothesis 9 is supported.
Research hypothesis 10: Brand Social Network Relationship Quality will have an
influence on the Brand Social Network Word-of-Mouth. The relationship between
Brand social network relationship quality and brand Social Network Word-of-Mouth
was significant (p<0001), therefore research hypothesis 10 is supported.
Research hypothesis 11: Brand Social Network word of mouth has a positive effect
on the consumers who are willing to pay the premium price. The relationship
between Brand social network word of mouth and consumers who are willing to pay
90
the premium price was significant (p<0001), therefore research hypothesis 5 is
supported.
Table 14: Test for structural relationships
Relationship Coefficient (S.E.)
Consumer/Brand → Brand trust 0.355 (0.102)*
Consumer/ Product → Brand trust 0.345 (0.037)*
Consumer/ Company → Brand trust 0.251 (0.069)*
*Significant at p<.05
Research hypothesis 3: Consumer’s relationships with the brand, product,
company and other consumers on the social media have a positive influence on the
brand trust.
Table 13 shows that all the path coefficients are significant and that they are all
positive, therefore research hypothesis 3 is supported.
91
Table 15: Respondents type (International entrepreneurs)
TYPE OF RESPONDENTS
Position Education level N (%)
Senior
management
Master’s Degree 2 (33)
University honours degree (Including 4th year of
engineering and the like
1 (16)
Middle/ lower
management
or
professional
Master’s Degree 1 (16)
University undergraduate degree or BTech 1(16)
Specialist
technical
Grade 10 of high school and Grade 12 of high school 1(16)
Most international entrepreneurs have a high level of education, however this seen
opposite where there is less international entrepreneurs with a lower qualification
92
Table 16: Most popular social media network used by international entrepreneurs
and the hours spent
Hours spent (%)
Social media network N (%) < 1 Hour 2-3
Hours
4-5
Hours
>6 Hours
1 Facebook 6 0.15% 0.44% 3.50% 12.55%
2 LinkedIn 3 3.21% 3.50% 4.4% 0.44%
3 Twitter 3 1.61% 0.29% 1.46% 2.63%
4 YouTube 1 0.58% 1.31% 0.29% 0.15%
5 Flickr 4 0.15% 0 0 2.5%
6 Vimeo 1 1.17% 0 0 0
7 MySpace 0 0.29% 0 0 0
8 Tumblr 3 4.23% 0 0 1.20%
9 Google+ 6 0.29% 0 0 3.4%
10 Other 0 0 0 0 0
93
International entrepreneurs tend to spend less time on social media platforms, with
an average of less than 2%. Most of the time spent on social media is through
LinkedIn as opposed to Facebook, which most large corporate companies use.
Table 17: The number of years of international entrepreneurs using the most popular
social media network
Years (%)
Social media network N (%) < 1 Year 2-3 Years 4-5 Years >6 Years
1 Facebook 6 0.36 8.8 0 0
2 LinkedIn 3 0.34 8.7 0 0
3 Twitter 3 0.70 8.1 0 0
4 YouTube 1 0.70 8.3 0 0
5 Flickr 4 0.73 7.3 0 0
6 Vimeo 1 0.71 0.71 0 0
7 MySpace 0 0.72 0.65 0 0
8 Tumblr 3 0.80 0.55 0 0
9 Google+ 6 0.80 0.58 0 0
10 Other 0 0 0 0 0
94
4.1. Interviews with international entrepreneurs
Company A: Case A
Case A is a Toy company situated in South Africa, that is one of the few companies
that have the exclusive rights to sell marvel comics, DC comic, Star Wars, Disney,
and Warner Bros products. The owner of the company has been living in South
Africa for the past 10 years. The yearly turnover (after expense and tax) is close to
R70 000. At the beginning, the owner started off as a wholesaler selling products
from China and after several years of frustration of bargaining good prices from
suppliers, he decided to open a different company which sold limited and unique
toys.
Company B: Case B
Case B is a steel company situated in South Africa, where the owner started off as a
junior accountant in the company and after 7 years, bought the company. Prior to the
company’s change of ownership, the company focused on local business and most
of the equipment was manufactured locally. Because of the weakening rand the
owner decided to place the company on the Internet. The company decided to
purchase products overseas and sell it locally with the aid of the social media and as
a result, the company has made an astonishing profit of almost R.30 000 on average
per month.
Company C: Case C
Case C is a Martial Arts Company based in the USA. The owner was originally from
China. His first overseas business venture started in 1996 to South Africa and after
travelling to several international competitions across the world, he decided to move
to the USA. After the dot.com boom and using the Internet to brand his school, he
decided to use social media to promote a more philosophical teaching outlook. Since
then, he has attracted 100 students per year who study with him.
95
Company D: Case D
Case D is a modelling agency in India. The owner is a female, who was hoping to
study medicine and in her spare time model for different agencies. Seeing that there
was potential in the modelling world, she decided to further her studies in
Postgraduate Diploma in Business management. She then started to work in a
corporate environment and after several years of questioning herself she decided to
start her own company, Gamiifcation. Using the Internet and social media, she now
has a large client list all over the world
Company E: Case E
Case E is an eco-tour specialist situated in Ghana. This company provides day and
night ecotourism experience and have appealed to clients all over the world. At the
start, the local business driven model of the company was to educate local people
about their surroundings. After several years, some volunteers from Europe visited
the area and noticed its unique environment. This led owner to start an international
business model and due to financial and telecommunication instability; he used the
social media to advertise his company.
96
Table 18: Case study analysis of the international entrepreneurial (Glavas and Mathews, 2014)
Participants
case number
Job role of the entrepreneurs Age of
entrepreneur
Gender of
entrepreneur
Country of origin of
the entrepreneur
International business
experience of the
entrepreneur
Firms years of
establishment
Firms year of first
international activity
Firms number of
employees
Case A Founder and CEO 38 Male Hong Kong Yes 5 5 20
Case B Owner 42 Male South Africa Yes 3 1 17
Case C Founder and Grandmaster 40 Male China Yes 10 7 4
Case D Founder and CEO 28 Female India Yes 6 2 2
Case E Founder and manager 50 Male Ghana Yes 2 0 0
97
Table 19: Case study analysis of the international entrepreneurial using social media (Glavas and Mathews, 2014)
Participants
case
number
Firm descriptive type Firms main use of the Internet Intensity of
Internet use
within the firm
Note
Case A Toy Company Website, email, advertising and public relations High Struggle at times to post update news onto the Internet
Case B Steel company Website, email, marketing Moderate Staff are not well equipped with the knowledge on how social
media works
Case C Martial art company Website, email, marketing Low Have to scrutinise information before posting
Case D Model agency and education Website, email, marketing, Moderate Little time to post onto social media
Case E Tourism marketing Low Still learning on how social media platform operates
98
Case A is the sole distributor for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Star Wars, Disney as
well as Warner Bros franchise. A large volume of emails are received from potential
sellers which has left the company at times struggling to update their website as well
as their social network site. Thus consumers tend to phone in and ask about their
new product range adding more pressure to the company in answering the
consumers requests on time.
Case B was a change in ownership; therefore the new owner as well as the staff do
not have the knowledge on how the Internet or social network operates.
Case C has a low level use of the Internet, as the product/service is mostly
physically done, most of the potential consumers will have seen it either during a
performance or website and would physically visit him.
Case D gets clients from word of mouth; however, she is sole worker of the company
which means most of the time, she is not able to update the social network or
Internet on time.
Case E started off as a local business and after a visit from a volunteer nearby, this
gave him the idea to advertise his business through the Internet as well as the social
media. However due to the generation gap, there is difficulty for the owner to learn
how the Internet or social networks function.
99
Table 18: Key international entrepreneur characteristics elicited during the interview (Glavas and Mathews, 2014)
Characteristics Case and level characteristics presented in the research
Characteristics influencing Internet application in
international business process
A B C D E
International innovativeness High Moderate Low Moderate Low
International proactiveness Moderate High High Moderate High
International business experience High Low High High Low
Keys: High, (high) levels of behaviour recorded, Moderate, (moderate) levels of behaviour recorded, Low, (low) levels of behaviour
recorded
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International innovativeness
The findings of this research, table 18 shows that there 1 out of the 6 cases
internationally focused firms displayed a high level of international innovativeness
behaviour. After the release of a block buster movie from Marvel comics, Iron man
and spiderman, there was model or figurine that resemble the movie action hero. the
owner then made a request, in obtaining exclusive rights to produce the marvel hero
figurine as well as be the sole seller of the franchise. After several months of
negotiation, Marvel comics granted him the distribution as well as the sole seller of
the Marvel comic action figure in South Africa
International proactiveness
Four out of the 6 international entrepreneurs in this research specified that they are
still hoping to grow their social network presence as well as increasing the traffic flow
of visitors surfing their webpage. However, two companies showed moderate
proactiveness, when probed,
Case A said
“Everybody knows what Marvel comics and DC comic is, so there is no need to
increase a fan base. Since the movie does all the marketing in promoting their film, I
just have to make sure that I deliver my product in time to the stores”
Case D said
“As we are a model agency, there is no need to do marketing, as models are the
face of the product. Whenever you put a picture of a model onto a webpage or social
network, without asking them to click on the link, they will click on it anyway”
Research hypothesis 7: International entrepreneur’s high innovation and high
proactiveness have a positive effect on the online brand community. This hypothesis
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is rejected, as they have financial constraint. Case C is a typical example, where
there is a low innovation and a proactiviness.
International business experience
Three out of the six entrepreneurs showed high levels of international business
experience attitude, this could be due to the fact that they have lived overseas and it
could be their experience living overseas that gave them the knowledge in living in a
foreign country. Case A lived in Hong Kong for over 30 years, when starting a new
business in South Africa, he brought point of view when establishing his own
business. He did not follow the traditional way, of how South Africans did their
business instead he applied a contemporary approach in doing business in South
Africa.
Case C is a martial art expert, after spending most of his career in China . In 1996,
he left China to start a martial art school business in South Africa. From the high
crime rate in South Africa, he used the knowledge that he had gained from training
and taught local citizens. After travelling to most parts of the world, he found that the
USA are lacking the connection between Eastern philosophy and Chinese Martial
arts.
Case D lived in Europe for a couple of years before returning to India. She brought a
vast knowledge on how to promote and train potential models which is where India
lacked.
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Table 21: The average number of activities posted by the international entrepreneur on social media over a period of 8 weeks
Case and the average number of visit onto the company social network site
Activities that are found on the social network site A B C D E F
Facebook fans 1656 300 231 390 368 500
“Like” post 5 4 8 7 3 13
“Response” post 2 5 2 2 1 2
Twitter follower 0 450 0 250 0 4
Twitter retweet 0 20 0 6 0 7
linkedin 0 4 0 265 0 36
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Table 22: Reasons for companies to use the social network sites
Reasons N (%)
1 To attract new consumers 6 (100 %)
2 To interact with consumers 6 (100 %)
3 To increase company brand 5 (83.0 %)
4 To communicate with consumers online 4 (67.0 %)
5 To get feedback from consumers 1 (16.7 %)
Research hypothesis 4: International entrepreneur’s informational and social
content drive will have a positive effect on the BSN Relationship Quality. This
research hypothesis is rejected due to the fact that they do not want to get any
feedback from their consumers (n=4).
Research hypothesis 6: Brand social network relationship quality will have a
positive effect on international entrepreneur’s creativity content drive.
International entrepreneurs were asked several interview questions and was asked
to select the closest reason in joining online social network that is related to their
company. Table 19 summarises the main reason why international entrepreneurs
use the social network site and the Internet. 27% international entrepreneurs
answered during the interview that they would like to attract more customers as well
as interacting with the consumer; however different CASE (table) had different
approach in using the Internet as the social network site. Interaction with consumers
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in this context is defined as the international entrepreneurs posting informational
information about the product and service that the company offers.
Only one international firm stated that they would like to provide a better service for
their customer thus they would like to get some feedback from their customer
Table 23: Barriers companies face when using the social network sites
Reasons N (%)
1 Social network site are not important within the
company operations
2 (12.5 %)
2 Uncertainty whether or how social network sites
could help brands
6 (100 %)
3 Staff are not familiar with the social network sites 4 (67.0 %)
4 Competitors do not use social network sites 5 (83.0%)
5 Staff do not have the technical skills to use social
network sites
5 (83.0 %)
Two international entrepreneurs acknowledge that the social network site is not
important within the company operations, this could be due to their workload and
pressure that they face every day in which they are unable to look into the social
network site
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However, all six international entrepreneurs noted that there is an uncertainty about
how effective is the social network sites, adding to that, as they know other
competitors are not using the social network site, they wanted to become the pioneer
in their field.
Research hypothesis 12: International entrepreneur’s continuous engagement on
the social media will have a positive effect on online product reviews.
with all the interviews, most of the international entrepreneurs have repeatedly said
that they don’t have the time nor the skills in using the social media network.
Therefore research hypothesis 12 is not supported as international entrepreneurs
are not able to engage with the social media continuously.
International entrepreneurs entering the foreign market: Porter’s five force model
This section examines the foreign market in which the international entrepreneurs
physically operate.
Figure 11: Porter’s five forces analysis for Case A
Threat of new entrants
Intensity of Rivalry
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
Bargaining Power of Buyers
Pressure from substitute products
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Case A have secured the sole license as a distributor for Marvel comics, Disney,
Star Wars as well as Warner Bros. Threats from new entrants is high, as a sole
distributor, products are set high which allows other competitor to enter the market
and sell it at a lower price.
Case A has managed to establish a relationship with other stores as well as their
consume which lowers the intensity of competitors. As the model figurine are scare,
the consumer has little say in purchasing their product, however interestingly, the
supplier is also seen the same.
Figure 12: Porter’s five forces analysis for Case B
Case B, was a takeover from the previous business owner. However from the
previous owner, social media was not part of the company marketing strategy. There
are little threats from new entrants, due to the fact that from the previous owner,
relationship between consumer-company has been established. However, other
companies who are in the same industry from the same period have utilized the
online social network. This has caused massive rivalry competition, as other
companies have dominated the online social media environment. There is also a
Threat of new entrants
Intensity of Rivalry
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
Bargaining Power of Buyers
Pressure from substitute products
107
high bargaining power for the buyer and supplier, and this could be caused from
rivalry online social network marketing campaign.
Figure 13: Porter’s five forces analysis for Case C
There is little threat from new entrants, Case C owner noted that this is due to his
personal teaching style. As most consumers seek for the unique feeling and
teaching. There is a high intensity rivalry from other already established school in the
surrounding area. The school relies on equipment made overseas, in which case C
owner mentioned that at times when you need certain equipment, the suppliers tend
to raise their price. Consumers are willing to spend on the fees, the reason is
because of the new motto everybody is trying to live by, “eat healthy, stay healthy”
Threat of new entrants
Intensity of Rivalry
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
Bargaining Power of Buyers
Pressure from substitute products
108
Figure 14: Porter’s five forces analysis for Case D
Case D is a model agency in India, and recently there is a large boom in the model
market. Entrance for new business owner is moderate however getting models and
paying models for their work is intense. Some companies have resorted in using
professional models and have substituted it with undergraduate students.
Threat of new entrants
Intensity of Rivalry
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
Bargaining Power of Buyers
Pressure from substitute products
109
Figure 15: Porter’s five forces analysis for Case E
Case E owner began to use the online social media at a late stage, therefore, to
establish a business in the country is very difficult. The owner has experienced
intense rivalry and at times, struggle to get equipment from the suppliers. As the
business is still in its infant stage, consumers tend to bargain for a better price which
diminishes Case E owner revenue.
Threat of new entrants
Intensity of Rivalry
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
Bargaining Power of Buyers
Pressure from substitute products
110
Social media network Analysis from case studies
Case A
Case A deals mainly with famous brands, who are now turning towards the film
industry. For Case A, marketing the product will not be meaningful as most
consumers will have already experienced the movie. From the network analysis, we
can see that there are a few strong relationship (bold lines). Consumers are the grey
dot, which illustrates how case A consumer interact with one another.
Figure 16: Social Media analysis for Case A (39 Nodes, 65 Edges)
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Case B
Case B shows that their relationship with the consumer is very spacious and is not
closely connected. This is due to the fact that they have entered into the online social
network at a very late stage and other competitor has taken the online social media
network space.
Figure 17: Social Media analysis for Case B (32 Nodes, 49 Edges)
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Case C
Figure 18: Social Media analysis for Case C (31 Nodes, 31 Edges)
The relationship between case C owner and this consumer are very weak. This
could be due to the fact that competitor in the surrounding area are also using the
online social media network
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Case D
Figure 19: Social Media analysis for Case D (29 Nodes, 32 Edges)
Case D company tend to have a few strong relationships with its consumer. Most of
their consumers are spaced out and they don’t seem to be connected with each
other. This suggests that there is very little electronic word-of-mouth between her
consumers
114
Case E
Figure 20: Social Media analysis for Case E (30 nodes, 25 Edges)
There is a very weak relationship between the owner and the consumer. There is
little or weak evidence of electronic word-of-mouth between its consumers which
suggested the high bargaining power of the buyer. A few strong relationships
between the owner and consumer can be seen
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4.2 Summary of the results
Table 24: Results of the hypothesis testing
Total (N=148)
Hypothesis Structural path Std. Est Standard err t-value
1 Experiential benefit →Brand Social Network Relationship Quality 0.455 0.513 8.87***
2 Functional benefit → Brand Social Network Relationship Quality 0.344 0.570 6.041***
3a Consumer/Brand → Brand trust 0.744 0.053 14.121***
3b Consumer/ Product → Brand trust 0.682 0.055 12.487***
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3c Consumer/ Company → Brand trust 0.741 0.053 13.931***
5 Brand Social Network Relationship Quality → Brand Relationship Quality 0.677 0.035 19.355***
8 Brand Relationship Quality → Brand Social Network Word of Mouth 0.804 0.023 35.178***
9 Brand Relationship Quality → Willing to pay premium 0.441 0.052 8.475***
10 Brand Social Network Relationship Quality → Brand Social Network Word of Mouth 0.586 0.042 13.811***
11 Brand Social Network Word-of-Mouth → Willing to pay premium 0.716 0.032 22.732***
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CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS
5.1 Introduction
This research is focused on how social media marketing affects International Entrepreneurs
business ventures. Several factors were assessed to determine the impact that social
media such as Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, Youtube, Google+, MySpace and Wordpress has
on potential customers.
Within the online brand community, potential and present consumers interact with each
other with regards to the quality of the brand, in which it will create a positive perception of
the brand (Adjei, et al., 2010; Hutter et al., 2013; McAlexander et al., 2002). As there is a
strong reliability, which suggest that consumers would strongly interact with other members
of the same online brand community but a weak relationship between the Brand community
of social network relationship and quality and Brand relationship quality suggest that the
branding of the company have not taken full usage of social media networks.
Consumers tend to trust a certain brand either by word of mouth or product review. Zhou et
al. (2012), reported that if consumers develop a certain relationship with a certain brand
social media community network, the consumer will become loyal towards the brand online
community social media network and will then refer it to other potential consumers.
Results have also shown that consumers tend to join online brand communities as a sign of
support for their brand (Compete, 2009), however, results were slightly different within the
South African context, in hypothesis 1, Experiential benefit → Brand trust has shown to
have a correlation of 0.5 which is small. As the GDP in South Africa decreases, consumers
tend to be less loyal to their favourite brand and will seek alternative brands.
Content analysis has shown that international entrepreneurs have relied solely on networks
to increase their business whereas large corporate companies have taken advantage of
social media networks. International entrepreneurs have shown that their ability in using
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social media is limited; this could be due to the fact that they have limited human capital
resources or alternatively do not have the sufficient time to allocate a staff member which
would specifically manage their social media network. Gensler et al. (2013) pointed out that
a brand managers objective is to create a brand that is able to stay in the consumers mind
for a period of time, these include brand stories (Schank, 1999; Singh and Sonnenburg,
2012; Woodside, 2010), personas and the company’s successes.
Males tend to spend less time on social network sites compared to females who spend an
average of more than 6 hours on the Internet compared to males. However, males tend to
visit brands online more than females, where the majority visits are either technology or
sportswear.
Earlier work done by Miller (1983), international entrepreneurs within this research tend to
have international innovative dimensions which is also referred to as the development or
enhancement of products and services, these included the changes of new administration
techniques as well as technologies in order to improve their organisation operation in the
international market. As there is a limited human capital resource, international
entrepreneurs tend to develop different skills and techniques in order for the organisation to
run its operation smoothly. It was also found that the international entrepreneurs have a
“forward-looking” perspective, as many of these firms want to become pioneers, they
become more proactive in capitalising on new and existing international business
opportunities (Wiklund, & Sheperd, 2005). The case studies have also shown that the
international entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the highly dynamic Internet
environment and have targeted consumers via social media. These require international
entrepreneurs to be innovative, proactive as well being a risk taker in an unknown
competitive environment (Ripollés-Meliá et al., 2007).
International entrepreneurs’ main reason for firms to be uncertain of the future of social
network sites is due to field that their firm operates in as well as the effectiveness of social
network sites. However the results have shown that companies tend to use social media as
119
they want to become the pioneer for their field, however there is lack of training and
management/ technical support in supplying their staff with the knowledge on how the
Internet and social networks (Buehrer et al., 2005; del Aguila-Obra & Padilla-Meléndez,
2006) operate. International entrepreneurs, as they have a limited resource on human and
financial resources, are not able to hire another employee.
Previous literature on the adoption of technology (Frambach & Schillewaert, 2002;
Mehrtens et al., 2001) and installing of social network site by SMEs’ is determined by the
international entrepreneur characteristics as well as their international business innovation
(Frambach & Schillewaert, 2002; Mehrtens et al., 2001). International entrepreneurs have
added that there is an uncertainty of how effective the social network site is and a study
(Russel, 2009) has shown that there is still a need to develop an effective measuring
metric.
Marketing managers have not been able to provide the data that is needed to demonstrate
the effectiveness of the social network sites. This could explain the reason why international
entrepreneurs are sceptical in using the social media, due to lack of quantified data that
illustrates the importance of social network sites.
Due to the popularity and influence (e.g. customer reviews/ feedback) of social network
sites, international firms are forced to use social media. However this will allow the firm to
develop a more customer-centred metric that will allow them to evaluate the effectiveness
of the social network (Borders et al., 2001). The metrics for measuring how effectiveness
the social media within the firm will have to look at the number of users joining the social
network group or brand community and the number of comments left by the consumer will
be the best indicator that could be used to measure the effectiveness of the social network.
Attracting new customers as well as interacting with the consumer prevailed as the biggest
reason for using the social network however the number of customers attracted via the
social network as a measurement tool is still relatively low, this could be due to the fact that
120
international entrepreneurs prefer to network with potential consumers and buyers
physically rather than using the Internet as a platform.
Social networking sites enable consumers to have all aspects of dialogue with companies,
brands and other consumers (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). Strong relationships are “long-
lasting, and affect-laden” (Krackhardt, 1992), while weak ones are “infrequent and distant”
(Hansen, 1999).
Indeed many organizations have been slow to adopt new technologies due to perceived
barriers such as a lack of money, time and training, negative views about its usefulness, as
well as unfamiliarity with the particular technology (Buehrer et al., 2005, Venkatesh & Davis,
2000).
Adoption of an innovation is therefore based on the perception of organizations regarding
the particular technology, which ultimately determines the time of adoption (Dillon & Morris,
1996; Jacovou, Benbasat,& Dexter, 1995). There is a lack of evidence that the size of the
firm is positively related to the use of technology (Del Aguila-Obra & Padilla-Meléndez,
2006; Premkumar & Roberts, 1999) as well as the turnover.
High High Internet
capabilities
Innovation
Case A
Case B Case D
Case E
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Figure 21: international Characteristics of innovation and proactiveness and the influence of
Internet capabilities (Glavas and Mathews, 2014)
Previous literature researchers have found that the Internet played a vital role in the
creation of relationships in firms thus creating international opportunities in SMEs (Bell &
Young, 1998; Loane, 2006; Mathews & Healy, 2008). It has been suggested however that
the Internet has enhanced the firm’s ability to interact with international customers,
suppliers and business partners through multiple inexpensive integrated Internet
technologies (Mathews & Healy, 2008). However in this study, firms that tend to have
higher levels of international innovation as well as international proactiveness
characteristics tend to have a higher level of Internet capability development for
international business processes.
Hennig-Thurau and Klee (1997) pointed out that the consumers’ perception of service
quality is a critical component of their overall perception of relationship quality, this is due to
the fact that there is an exchange of service which is the fundamental feature between the
buyer-seller relationship
Proactiveness
HighLow
Low Internet
capabilities
Case C
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5.2 Conclusion
In conclusion, research hypothesis 1, research hypothesis 2, research hypothesis 3 was
supported however research hypothesis 4 was rejected. Therefore the three hypothesis
supported research question 1.
Research hypothesis 5 and research hypothesis 6 supported research question 2 however
research hypothesis 7 was rejected.
Research question 8, research question 9, research question 10 and research hypothesis
11 supported research question 3 but research 12 did not support it.
123
CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
6.1 Introduction
This chapter consolidates the discussion of the research results, the conclusion of the
study, implications on how social media marketing influences international entrepreneurs
and recommendations for future research
6.2 Conclusions of the study
In conclusion to the study, international entrepreneurs have not been able to grasp fully the
social media network which could affect their business venture. However social media
users who are their potential customers tend to trust brands that provide useful and
beneficial information. There is also a lack of evidence in which demonstrates the
effectiveness of the social network sites within the how the company operates, creating an
uncertainty of the impact it social marketing have on social media. Another barrier that
international entrepreneurs face is their staff lack of training and knowledge on how social
media and network sites use, thus firms will have to use the traditional advertising method
that is printing, which increases the expense for the company and will be a burden for the
international entrepreneurs SMEs.
6.3 Recommendations
International entrepreneurs will need to grow their human capital resources and utilise the
social media network if they would want their business venture to grow. Social commerce is
beginning to use the social media as opposed to electronic commerce, have taken the
social media by surprise, therefore there needs to be further studies needed to understand
more about the social media users characteristic in order for international entrepreneurs to
understand the foreign environment through the Internet environment
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More research needs to be done on the social media marketing with regards to online
branding as well as online shopping within the South African context.
6.4 Suggestions for further research
As the sample size was small, further research will need to increase the sample and
population size. This will provide better data to conduct a Confirmatory factor analysis as
well as a Structural Equation Modelling analysis. Further research will be needed on online
brand as well as online community; these will give a deeper insight on their online
behaviour as well as their online routine.
125
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147
APPENDIX A
International entrepreneur’s questionnaire
A.1 Construct items
Please provide your job title: _________________________________
Please provide your current age: ___________
Tick the most appropriate options below
Which of the following would best describe your job level?
o Senior management
o Middle/ lower management or professional
o Specialist technical
o Not management , professional or specialist technical
What is your highest completed level of education? (Note: if you started studying at a
certain level and did not finish please do not tick that level)
o Grade 10 of high school
o Grade 12 of high school (matric)
o Pre-university but post-school diploma (e.g. 1-year certified diploma in
bookkeeping)
o University undergraduate degree or BTech
o University honours degree (including 4th year of engineering and the like)
148
o Masters degree
o Phd
What is your Gender?
o Male
o Female
Indicate the primary industry in which your organization operates
o Agriculture
o Accounting
o Advertising
o Airline
o Automotive
o Banking
o Broadcasting
o Brokerage
o Call centre
o Biotechnology
o Chemical
o Computer
o Consulting
149
o Cosmetic
o Education
o Energy
o Financial service
o Health care
o Internet publishing
o Legal
o Manufacturing
o Newspaper publishers
o Pharmaceuticals
o Publishing
o Real estate
o Retail and wholesale
o Technology
Which country is your company based in? _______________________
How long, in years, have you been at your current organization:
150
<1
years
2-3
years
4-5
years
6-7
years
7-8
years
9-10
years
10-11
years
11-12
years
>12
years
151
How many hours do you spend per week on the following social media?
Social Media Network
<1 hour
2-3
Hours
3-4
Hours
4-5
Hours
>6 hours
YouTube
Flickr
Vimeo
MySpace
WordPress
Tumblr
Google+
Other:
152
What are your reasons for using social media in your business?
(Kahar, R., Yamimi, F., Bunari, G., & Habil, H. 2012)
Yes No
To find new customers
To build relationship with prospective customers
To strengthen relationship with existing customers
To build relationship with friends
To increase my sales
For fun
For image building
To create networking
To strengthen networking
Others:
This is the end of the survey. If you click submit you will not be able to return to edit
your responses
153
o I want to end the survey
Interview questions (Referred by the Business Development)
Question 1
Can you please give me an overview of your company’s history, competitor and customer
base?
Question 2
Does your company have any social media accounts? If so, which social media does your
company use?
Question 3
How does your company implement its social media objectives (such as positing
messages, reply to comment)?
Monitoring the company social media network
Name of Company (optional): _____________________________________
154
How many years have you been using the following social media
Social Media <1
year
2-3 years 4-5 years 6-7
years
>8 years
YouTube
Flickr
Vimeo
MySpace
WordPress
Tumblr
Google+
Other:
155
How many hours do you spend per week on the following social media
Social Media Network
<1 hour
2-3
Hours
3-4
Hours
4-5
Hours
>6 hours
YouTube
Flickr
Vimeo
MySpace
WordPress
Tumblr
Google+
Other:
156
The number of activities occurring in the organization social media network within 8
weeks of observation
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Average
fans
“Like” post
“Response”
to post
follower
Twitter re-
tweet
Others
157
Questionnaires to students
Instructions: Complete the questionnaire as honestly as possible.
Please write the name of the brand that you will refer to:
________________________________
Which of the following would best describe your job level?
o Senior management
o Middle/ lower management or professional
o Specialist technical
o Not management , professional or specialist technical
What is your highest completed level of education? (Note: if you started studying at a
certain level and did not finish please do not tick that level)
o Grade 10 of high school
o Grade 12 of high school (matric)
o Pre-university but post-school diploma (e.g. 1-year certified diploma in
bookkeeping)
o University undergraduate degree or BTech
o University honours degree (including 4th year of engineering and the like)
o Masters degree
o PhD
Could you indicate your Gender?
o Male
o Female
158
o How many hours do you spend per week on the following social media network?
Social Media Network
<1 hour
2-3
Hours
3-4
Hours
4-5
Hours
>6 hours
YouTube
Flickr
Vimeo
MySpace
WordPress
Tumblr
Google+
Other:
159
Rank the following statement from 1 to
7 where 1= Totally disagree and 7=
Totally agree
*(#brand) refers to the brand that you
chose as above
Tot
ally
dis
agre
e
Som
ewha
t dis
agre
e
Dis
a gre
e
Neu
tral
Agr
ee
Som
ewha
t agr
ee
Agr
ee T
otal
ly a
gree
The social aspects of (#brand)’s
Facebook page are important to me
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
On (#brand)’s Facebook page, I get to
know other people who are interested in
this brand
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I enjoy communicating with other
members on (#brand)’s FB page
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I enjoy browsing and/or participating in
(#brand)’s FB page
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Browsing and/or participating in (#brand)’s
FB page enriches my life
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Overall, I enjoy browsing and/or
participating in (#brand)’s FB page
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
The information provided by (#brand)’s FB
page is valuable
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
The information provided by (#brand)’s FB
page is useful
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s FB page provides information
at an appropriate level of detail
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
160
On (#brand)’s FB page, there are good
features that help me to accomplish my
tasks
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s FB page provides special offers
(e,g. discounts, promotions) for me.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s FB page provides updates on
upcoming sales
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s FB page gives me loyalty
incentives for my continued participation
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s FB page plays an important
role in my daily life
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I feel something is amiss when I stop
using (#brand)’s FB page
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I have made a commitment to (#brand)’s
FB page
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I keep (#brand)’s FB page in mind all the
time
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I am willing to make sacrifices to keep
using (#brand)’s FB page
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I will stay with (#brand)’s FB page through
good times and bad times
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s FB page is reliable and
dependable
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I have lots of respect for (#brand)’s FB 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
161
page
I feel safe and secure when I use
(#brand)’s FB page
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s FB page adds a sense of
stability to my life
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s FB page treats me like a
valuable customer
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s FB page shows continuing
interest in me
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s FB page takes good care of me 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s makes efforts to increase
customers’ loyalty
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s makes various efforts to
improve its ties with customers
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand) really cares about keeping
customers
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand) says a lot about the kind of
person I am
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand)’s image and my self-image are
similar in many respects
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(#brand) plays an important role in my life 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I have recommended (#brand)’s FB page
to lots of people
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
162
I ‘talk up’ (#brand)’s FB page to my friends 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I try to spread the good word about
(#brand)’s FB page
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I give (#brand)’s FB page lots of positive
word-of-mouth advertising
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I would be willing to pay a higher price for
(#brand) over other similar brands
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I prefer to purchase from (#brand) even if
another brand advertises a lower price
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(Park, H., & Kim, Y-K., 2014)
163
Appendix B
Construct Item Code
The social aspects of (#brand)’s Facebook page are important to me 1
On (#brand)’s Facebook page, I get to know other people who are interested in this brand 2
I enjoy communicating with other members on (#brand)’s FB page 3
I enjoy browsing and/or participating in (#brand)’s FB page 4
Browsing and/or participating in (#brand)’s FB page enriches my life 5
Overall, I enjoy browsing and/or participating in (#brand)’s FB page 6
The information provided by (#brand)’s FB page is valuable 7
The information provided by (#brand)’s FB page is useful 8
(#brand)’s FB page provides information at an appropriate level of detail 9
On (#brand)’s FB page, there are good features that help me to accomplish my tasks 10
(#brand)’s FB page provides special offers (e,g. discounts, promotions) for me. 11
(#brand)’s FB page provides updates on upcoming sales 12
(#brand)’s FB page gives me loyalty incentives for my continued participation 13
(#brand)’s FB page plays an important role in my daily life 14
I feel something is amiss when I stop using (#brand)’s FB page 15
164
I have made a commitment to (#brand)’s FB page 16
I keep (#brand)’s FB page in mind all the time 17
I am willing to make sacrifices to keep using (#brand)’s FB page 18
I will stay with (#brand)’s FB page through good times and bad times 19
(#brand)’s FB page is reliable and dependable 20
I have lots of respect for (#brand)’s FB page 21
I feel safe and secure when I use (#brand)’s FB page 22
(#brand)’s FB page adds a sense of stability to my life 23
(#brand)’s FB page treats me like a valuable customer 24
(#brand)’s FB page shows continuing interest in me 25
(#brand)’s FB page takes good care of me 26
(#brand)’s makes efforts to increase customers’ loyalty 27
(#brand)’s makes various efforts to improve its ties with customers 28
(#brand) really cares about keeping customers 29
(#brand) says a lot about the kind of person I am 30
(#brand)’s image and my self-image are similar in many respects 31
(#brand) plays an important role in my life 32
I have recommended (#brand)’s FB page to lots of people 33
165
I ‘talk up’ (#brand)’s FB page to my friends 34
I try to spread the good word about (#brand)’s FB page 35
I give (#brand)’s FB page lots of positive word-of-mouth advertising 36
I would be willing to pay a higher price for (#brand) over other similar brands 37
I prefer to purchase from (#brand) even if another brand advertises a lower price 38
166
Appendix C
List of social media network
YouTube
Flickr
Vimeo
MySpace
WordPress
Tumblr
Google+
167
Appendix D
Table 22: Definitions and sample codes for exteroceptoin, proprioception and
coperception. (Cabiddu et al., 2014)
Category Definition Phrases to look for
Exteroception Perception of social media
characteristics
Facebook is……..
The followers are ……..
Twitter…………
Proprioception Perception of the business venture
Internet characteristics
Our customers want……
Company X is……..
Coperception Simultaneous awareness of social
media and Internet capabilities
relative to the international
entrepreneurs possible action
We use facebook…..
We could run
campaigns….
168
Table : Sample of the coding used for exteroception, proprioception and coperations
(Cabiddu et al., 2014)
Category Illustrative quote
Exteroception “Within the social media network, the inability to send a
private message”
Proprioception “Our company are reluctant to change and will continue
what has been working for the past year. Why fix it when its
not broken yet?”
Coperception “Our company uses facebook for marketing purposes”
169
Appendix E
Timeline of international entrepreneurs starting their business venture through the
online social media network
Case A
Joined Facebook in 2012
Reached 500 followers by mid-2012
Reached 1000 followers by beginning of 2013
Case B
Joined Facebook in 2010
Joined Youtube in 2010
Joined Twitter in 2012
Case C
Joined Facebook
Reached 500 followers
Reached 1000 followers
Joined Facebook
Joined Youtube
Joined Twitter
170
Joined Facebook in 2014
First video upload on youtube in mid 2014
A total of 200 followers reached at the end of 2014
Case D
Joined Facebook and Twitter in 2013
Uploaded videos on Facebook and youtube by the end of 2013
Passed 300 likes in 2015
Case E
Joined Facebook in 2010
Passed 500 likes in 2015
Joined Youtube in 2015
Joined Facebook
First video upload on youtube
200 followers
Joined facebook and twitter
videos on Facebook and youtube
300 likes
Joined Facebook
500 likes
Youtube
171
Appendix F
Codes that were used for the Social Network Analysis, Gephi 8.2 beta
Code Course of action
1 “Like” the Facebook post
2 View the post
3 Comment on the Facebook post
4 Sharing the Facebook post
5 Like the Facebook page
6 Post an image on the organisation website
7 Posted a tweet on twitter
8 Retweet message
9 Followers retweeting organisation tweet
10 Following tweet
11 Twiiter being follwed
172
12 Upload image onto twitter
13 Upload video on youtube
14 Youtube video posted onto social media network
173
Appendix F: Consistency matrix
Social Media Marketing and its influence on International Entreprenerus
Aims of research Literature review Hypothesis or proposition or
Research question
Sources of
data
Type of data Analysis
Understanding the
levels of passion that
international
entrepreneurs have,
when using the social
media
Dholakia,
Bagozzi, & Pearo,
(2014); Chiu,
Hsu, & Wang,
(2006); Arora,
Arora, & Palvia,
(2014)
International entrepreneurs
providing beneficial information
will be more likely to have a
positive response from the online
brand community
Interview,
linkert scale
Intervals,
Continuous
Inferential statistics,
Determine the
capabilities of social
media usage by the
Lu, Chang, &
Chang (2014);
Brogi, (2014),
International entrepreneurs
providing beneficial information
will be more likely to have a
Interviews, case
studies, likert
Intervals Inferential statistics
174
international
entrepreneur
Galvas &
Matthews (2014)
positive response from the online
brand community
Evaluate how
consumers view social
media information and
the affect it has on the
firms brand
Kietzmann,,
Hermkens,
McCarthy,
Silverstre (2011);
Erdogmus, &
Cicek, (2012);
Przepiorka,
(2013); Jung,
Kim, & Kim
(2014); Habibi,
Laroche, &
Richard, (2014)
International entrepreneurs who
build a strong online brand trust
will have a significance influence
in consumer revisit intention
Continuous,
Netnography
research
approach,
interviews,
Categorical
Intervals Inferential statistics,